One Building at a Time
by suchanoldnameandtime
Summary: Sasuke left three years ago, and the Uchiha compound is starting to fall to pieces. Naruto will rebuild the whole thing for Sasuke so he'll have a home once Naruto rescues him, and he makes several discoveries on the way.
1. Prologue

**Welcome to the prologue of my new story! Dont worry, the actual chapters are much longer than this introductory chapter. Enjoy!**

**disclaimer: if Naruto were mine, then every fantasy and plot theory I have in my head would totally be cannon. Sadly, that isn't the case. Bummer.**

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><p>It was just one of those nights. The kind of late night so dark it would be impossible to see two feet in ahead if it weren't for the ambient light of the moon. The village is quiet, just like it has been for the past eight years in the old Uchiha compound. Off in the distance there is the faint sound of hawkers in the marketplace, children running and giggling, and middle aged women complaining about their home lives in the village's many bars. Here, there is nothing but wind whistling through the branches of ivy growing up the walls and through cracks in the fences.<p>

Technically speaking, Naruto isn't supposed to be here in the Uchiha compound. The whole thing was closed off for being a hazard. The buildings have been sorely neglected over the years. This part of town is very old, and its former inhabitants would have had to do major renovation and construction in order to keep everything standing. Without the constant work put into keeping it all safe, many of the buildings have begun to fall apart. A couple years ago there was talk in the village council about authorizing a bigger budget to rebuild the Uchiha compound. After Sasuke left, the discussion ceased. No point in restoring anything when the only legal owner of the land had run off.

Naruto's fingernails scratch absentmindedly on the faded old tile of the main house. Sasuke's former home is the only building that was kept pristine, and it's the only building where Naruto feels safe enough to sit on the roof. Naruto imagines Sasuke, twelve years old, teetering on a ladder doing everything in his power to renovate his own home. He imagines Sasuke laying down new tile, fixing the wallpaper, checking the support beams for water rot, and waxing the floors. The house is big and at that point, Sasuke was just one little boy. He did everything to protect his home, but he had no energy to salvage the rest of the compound.

It has been three years, and even Naruto notices that all the work Sasuke put into his own house is starting to wear off. He stands up very carefully and jumps off the roof and brings two or three tiles down with him. They break as soon as they hit the ground with a loud and clear crash. Naruto runs a finger on a dusty window. The glass is warped. As he attempts to walk up the wooden stairs into the main house to leave through the front door, Naruto's foot falls through the first step. As he leaves, he notices the metal knocker on the door has grown rusty and cannot be moved. Naruto kicks at the dirt as he walks down the road leading back to the main village. He silently pushes on the large wooden Main Gate and replaces the dark orange CONDEMNED sticker on the front.

There is no room here for a missing-nin who lost his way. There is no love. Naruto had briefly considered sharing his apartment with Sasuke once he brought him back, but it's barely big enough for him anymore. What will Sasuke say when he sees how the village let his home crumble and decay? Would he still stay if he knew no one wanted him back enough to take care of his property?

Naruto unlocks his front door and heads over to the corkboard he hung on the wall opposite his bed. He removes the sticky notes of mission reminders and old shopping lists and removes the tacks from his old movie ticket stub collection to clear a space. On a clean sheet of paper, he writes down a new shopping list full of items to be purchased the next day. Sasuke is going to come home someday, but the Uchiha compound isn't ready for him just yet. There is only one solution: Naruto will rebuild and renovate the whole thing on his own. He'll make it so that it'll be like Sasuke never left, one building at a time.


	2. The Necessary Supplies

**Yay for the actual first chapter! I know nothing important has happened yet, but they will! Please enjoy!**

**Disclaimer: I own a lot of things: a car, a laptop, a shit-ton of books, and various other things lots of other people have. Naruto is not one of those things (sadly).**

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><p>Little spots of light seeped their way in through the trees outside of Naruto's window. The early morning breeze floated in and blew gently across the apartment and rustled at the list on the corkboard quietly. Birds chirped and brought in their soft songs through the open window. Naruto blinked his eyes open, the heavy lidded urge to sleep still strong. The clock radio on his headboard counted the time and flipped from 6:59 to 7:00 and turned on.<p>

"Good morning Konoha!" came the cheerful voice of the morning radio show DJ. "It's seven in the morning and you know what that means! If the lucky caller number seven can tell us who sings the newest hit single I'm playing, they win a gift card for free dinner for two from the restaurant Shushuya! So tell me, Konoha: Who Sings That Song?"

The song began to play. It was a fun and happy sounding bubblegum pop song sung by a girl in her late teens. Naruto sat up and rubbed his eyes. He liked free food as much as the next guy, and if he knew who sang this overly happy tune, he'd call in. He shook his head and hit the snooze button on his clock radio and stumbled off to the bathroom. He stopped and supported himself on the sink, one hand on each side of the basin. He lifted his head and stared at the reflection in the mirror. He had trouble sleeping the past few weeks, and his face showed it. His skin was dry and his eyes were bloodshot and the dark circles under those eyes had gotten much bigger and darker. Sakura had once tried to cover them with concealer, but Naruto couldn't bring himself to apply Sakura's make-up on a daily basis. It just felt wrong.

He turned the handle on the sink and stuck his hands under the flow of ice cold water and splashed it onto his face. He grabbed for the brush on the lid of the toilet next to the sink and attempted to tame his hair into something presentable. Granny Tsunade wouldn't wait forever.

Naruto had never been awake this early. The village seemed like a different place in the morning. Naruto walked past his neighbors on the street shopping for groceries from street vendors and passed Konohamaru and his group of friends. The streets were almost empty of other ninja his age. Most of his friends, like him, didn't wake up until later in the morning due to being out late on missions. Many of the older people on the street stared at him curiously, but soon returned to their own business. Naruto couldn't help but notice that downtown Konoha was in infinitely better shape than the Uchiha compound. Naruto understood for once why Sasuke hated coming into town. Seeing everything in perfect condition and well cared for must have felt like a slap to the face. Naruto had vaguely heard of how the Uchiha had been screwed by the village over the years, but having people not even remotely care that their part of town was in shambles took the cake. The very idea of an entire village population letting an eight year old fend for himself in substandard housing was just cruel.

Naruto opened the door of the Hokage's building and checked in with the new receptionist; a cute light haired blonde with brown eyes. She directed him up the flight of stairs to her right. He plodded up the stairs slowly, gripping the railing tightly as if he were afraid of falling. Naruto didn't understand why Granny Tsunade had requested that he talk with her this early in the morning. Who could function this early anyway? Naruto pushed open the door to Tsunade's office and tried to shield his eyes from the glare of sunlight through the large windows behind the Hokage's desk.

Hell, even Tsunade wasn't awake yet. She snored quietly, her face resting on her desk and a small stream of drool coated the papers and files spread haphazardly over it. Naruto briefly considered taking the permanent marker in the coffee cup pencil holder on the edge of the desk and writing on her face. A basic prank, true, but an incredibly satisfying one! Naruto ditches the idea. Tsunade would be more willing to agree to his proposition if she was in a good mood. Instead of waiting for Tsunade to wake up and realize that for once Naruto had shown up on time, he sighed heavily and brought his hands together in a loud clap.

"Hrumpffm?" Tsunade grumped as her head jerked up. One of the papers (Naruto couldn't help but notice) was stuck to the side of her face.

"G'morning Granny Tsunade," Naruto said cheerfully.

Tsunade rubbed her temples and sighed.

"I was hoping to catch up on more sleep," she grumbled. "Do you know how late I had to stay up, you loudmouth?"

"Not as late as I usually have to," Naruto replied. "Although I admit that it is probably easier for me to stay awake than you. I am younger, after all."

"I am not OLD!" Tsunade yelled as she pushed herself into a standing position against her desk. "I don't know what it is you need to talk to me so urgently about, but insulting me isn't going to make me want to hear you out."

"Heh…about that,"

"Don't get shy on me, boy."

""I…I want you to give me the green light to repair the Uchiha compound." Naruto stared at Granny Tsunade, hoping she'd take him seriously.

"Naruto," Tsunade said slowly, as if trying to explain something to a small child. "You realize that there are no Uchiha left in Konoha, yes?"

"It won't stay that way for long," Naruto insisted. "Eventually, I'll get Sasuke to come home. He'll need the space when he gets older too, because he has a clan to restore. That compound isn't in any condition to be a home for anyone."

"It's just that-"

"Unless you think I can't do it," Naruto said through tight gritting teeth. "You think he'll say no? You got no faith in me?"

Tsunade shook her head.

"I wish you nothing but success and I certainly hope you bring Uchiha home. But I can't just give you permission to take on a task that large on your own. There are quite a few legal obligations that must be fulfilled before I agree to anything."

"Such as?"

"For one thing, our health care system is set up in a way that unless you own the property and you hurt yourself, any hospital bill will be impossible to pay. Legally, Sasuke still owns everything in that part of town. You injure yourself, and legally it'd be Sasuke's job to pay for your healing since it was his property you got hurt on. He'd be responsible for it. But like I said, Sasuke isn't here to pay for anything you might do to hurt yourself. You'd have to pay for it on your own, and the cost of healing you for any significant injury isn't going to be cheap. If you had legal responsibility over the place, it'd be the village that would pay your bills because we put the property in your care. Your healing would be free."

"So do it," Naruto said.

Tsunade walked over to one of many large file cabinets and pulled out a folder and slapped it onto her desk.

"See this?" she lifted a long piece of heavy legal paper from the folder. "It's a deed. In order to give you rights over the compound, someone has to sign it off to you. Unfortunately, Sasuke isn't here to give it to you."

"Cant the village sign it off to me?"

"Unless Sasuke is killed in action or dies a natural death and Konoha gets wind of it, we have no legal right to sign off someone else's property. Normally, a missing-nin's property is confiscated upon leaving, but since I've put out an order to suspend Sasuke's reclassification so you can safely bring him back, the land is still in his name."

Naruto bit his lip. Stupid red-tape…

"If you're so determined to fix it up, be my guest. You don't have to own it to fix it. Your name on the deed would certainly make it easier to defend your actions to the village elders, though."

Naruto perked up.

"So I can do it?"

Tsunade waved him out of her office.

"Go, go! Fix your little compound. Just don't expect everyone to be supportive of your decision."

"Done," Naruto said. "By the way, the paper is still stuck to your face."

He ran out the door before Tsunade could manage to hit him with the coffee mug she threw.

. . .

Ah, the strange magic of a hardware store. It was full of the sounds of wood saws being tested, the smell of molded plastics and metal and young children running around asking "what's this for?" Every other person was a man in his mid-thirties pretending he knew more about tools than the workers and paying for it by buying substandard tools at expensive prices. Fortunately, Naruto knew better than to assume he knew what was best.

"Morning," he said to the manager.

"Uzumaki?" He raised an eyebrow curiously. "What are you doing here? You've never needed anything from me before."

"There's a first time for everything," Naruto grinned at the shopkeeper, and he smiled back softly. "Actually I'm starting a big project and I need tools and supplies. LOTS of tools and supplies."

"How much do you think you'll need?" The shopkeeper took out a clipboard with order forms and a pencil.

"I'm not sure how many buildings total, but they're all in bad shape. So I need wood, screws, nails, drywall, and paint. If you were going to rebuild a condemned building from the foundation up, how much would I need?"

The shopkeeper took out his calculator and punched in some numbers.

"One standard three story building rebuilt from the original framework would need about three regular loads of wood, two regular loads of drywall, ten boxes each of nails and screws, and eight buckets of paint," the shopkeeper rummaged through the papers on his clipboard and stuck a new form on top. "How about you open up a tab with us? If your project is a big as you say, you're going to be ordering through us weekly, if not more so. Why don't you go pick out some standard tools for your kit while I fill out the form to open your tab?"

Naruto walked slowly up and down the hardware store aisles, picking up tools and examining them before putting them back. Naruto (being the klutzy ninja he was) needed solid, strong tools that could take a beating. He wanted high grade metal, but everything seemed to have wooden handles. He also needed to make sure they were all in the proper sizes and were easy to use. Naruto was a first time builder, and although he'd helped with construction projects before, it was all on a smaller scale. He remembered the mission to build a bridge that he'd gone on back when team seven was still new, but it was Sakura who had done most of the helping with the actual building. Naruto and Sasuke did nothing but train.

Once his new tool case was filled with acceptable tools for a clumsy and first timer, he walked back up to the checkout counter to place his first order.

"So," the shopkeeper said. "I put in an order for supplies to fix three buildings. I also threw in two extra boxes of nails and screws. Those little buggers like to get loose. You'll lose a lot of them when you're building. Trust me; you'll thank me later for it."

As Naruto completed his transaction, the shopkeeper placed the tab form in front of him.

"Now that your tab is open and your supplies can be ordered, where do you want them dropped off?"

Naruto set his new toolbox down beside him and wrote the address on the delivery information line. The shopkeeper took the paper and stared at it in shock. No doubt he'd seen that all materials were to be delivered in front of the Uchiha compound main gate.

"Young man," the elderly shopkeeper said gravely. "This big project you're starting…it isn't to rebuild the old Uchiha compound is it?"

"Yep," All Naruto could do was shrug. Tsunade had warned him, after all.

"You're going to refurbish the property of a traitor?"

Naruto put his signature on the completion line of the tab request form.

"I am," he told the shopkeeper. "Because when Sasuke comes back, he doesn't deserve to live in a place fit for a traitor."


	3. The Gate

**And here is the next part! I enjoy writing for little Sasuke. It's certainly more fun then when he's older and more distant. Please enjoy!**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto. But if Kishimoto wants me to make Chibi!Sasuke scenes for him, I'd be more than happy to do so!**

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><p>Naruto deeply regretted not buying furniture for his apartment balcony. Sometimes he'd spend ages out there, just looking up into the sky and imagining how big space must be. He imagined everyone his age had done this at least once. Naruto found that it was the only thing outside of sleeping or eating himself into a coma that made him forget about things that were troubling him. Of course since he was stupid and never got at least a simple folding chair to put out there, Naruto is always caught having to stand for hours or sit on the floor, which was always in desperate need of mopping.<p>

He knew it would be hard for people to accept that he was rebuilding the Uchiha District. He expected the funny looks and trite name-calling and the questioning of his intelligence from the villagers. It wasn't like they'd never done it in the first place, after all. What he had not been expecting was the increased frequency of these things happening. Either everyone in the village had become telepathic or the hardware store manager was a huge gossip because within two hours everyone knew of Naruto's plans for rebuilding Sasuke's land. Some were supportive. (_I hope you do well, and be careful of your fingers when you use that hammer!_) Some chose to ignore him. (_Uzumaki is what? Who cares?_) Most of them openly mocked him. (_That idiot can hardly build a house of cards, let alone an actual building/You wanna tell him there ain't no Uchihas left for him to impress?/ My goodness, I hope he doesn't have plans to buy that compound. God knows no one of any good sense would give him that deed no matter how well he rebuilds it…)_ Naruto had heard nearly every depreciating comment ever made about him in his life thrown at him once more in the small space of one afternoon. Naruto supposed they were making up for lost time.

Naruto stifled a yawn and turned his head slightly to the left and stared at his porch light, which had just turned on and bathed the balcony in the bright yellow light of a cheap bulb. He scratched his head and checked the clock on the neighboring apartment building's outside wall. 9:30 already? Naruto slowly made his way back inside through his double sliding glass door and removed his shirt and threw it in his hamper's direction. He made his way to the bathroom and flipped on the light switch. He shuffled across the faded linoleum to the bathtub and turned the hot water faucet as far as it would go. His cold water faucet was turned only slightly, as Naruto had never trusted his water heater's ability to keep his water piping hot. To Naruto, it just wasn't a good bath if the water didn't make you feel like a boiling lobster. While the tub filled with water, Naruto finished stripping off the rest of his clothes and chucked them out of the bathroom. He pushed up the toilet seat lid and did his best to ignore the hissing sound that pissing made. Once the water reached an acceptable level in the tub, he turned the handles off and slowly eased himself into the scalding hot water.

Naruto let himself sink into his bath, only letting his eyes stay above water. The yellow rubber ducky that Sakura had given him as a gag gift for his fifteenth birthday last fall floated by him. The hot water burned against the cuts on his fingers from messing with shuriken and kunai yesterday. Naruto silently cursed himself for not bandaging them when he had the chance. Naruto hated himself for spending bath time angsting about how everyone else had treated him today. Normally he tried to keep bath time upbeat. Naruto flicked on the waterproof radio on the bath ledge next to him and tuned it to his usual station.

"_Welcome to Konoha After Nine,"_ The smooth voiced DJ said. _"You know what to do. Call me up at 555-6721 to request a song, or if you're feeling especially daring, chat up your humble radio host."_ Naruto grinned and lifted the rest of his head above the water. A lot of times, teenage girls would call in to talk about strange and random things or to ask for advice, and Naruto would spend ages trying to guess who was calling in.

"_So, um…"_ goes the high pitched voice of the first caller. _"I'm having this problem, you know, with my best friend? She's friends with this other girl who, like, is really mean to me all the time behind her back, and she totally won't believe me. I was all like, 'Aya, how can you not believe me since we're BFFs?' and then she completely blew me off."_

Naruto wasn't sure who this girl might be since he didn't know anyone named Aya.

"_Well caller," _said the DJ. _"You might need to play spies for this one. Catch the next time on tape. Only a moron ignores taped evidence."_

Naruto twisted the volume knob up and sunk back into the water. The next caller is also a teenage girl, a slightly younger sounding one, who spent the next few minutes fangirling over the DJ.

"_How old are you?"_The girl asks as the sound of giggling filled Naruto's ears. She must be calling in with her friends.

"_Me?"_ The DJ said flirtatiously. "_I'm 28. I guess that makes me too old for you lovely sounding ladies."_

The girls on the other end squeed loudly, and Naruto took that as a cue to turn off his radio and get to bed.

One fresh pair of pajamas later and Naruto collapsed into bed and fell asleep instantly. He had a lot of work to do in the morning.

. . .

Naruto figured the best place to start was at the beginning. He took out his tape measure and climbed up the stone wall to measure the main gate. As the tape coiled back in, it hit Naruto's hand painfully. Naruto fell back to the ground, swearing and cursing loudly and quickly while shaking his hand and sucking on his hurt fingers in an attempt to ease the pain.

The Main Gate is perfectly square: 12' by 12'.

"Fuck," Naruto mumbles. "Even your clan's architecture had to be perfect, didn't it?"

Naruto looked up from his pile of wood. He had no idea why he was talking to himself. Like Sasuke was really going to come back from hundreds of miles away just to make a snarky come-back to his ramblings? Please.

Naruto lined up the wood in his pile into a 12' by 12' square and begins hammering the planks in place.

. . .

_Sasuke leaned his head against his older brother's shoulder as he carried him home piggy back style after twisting his ankle in the training grounds._

"_I'm sorry, 'Tachi-nii," Sasuke says quietly. "I thought I could do it this time."_

_Sasuke can almost feel Itachi's smile when he responds. "I know."_

_Sasuke lifted his head back up and looked behind him to the training ground. The marks from his brother's kunai were cut into the center of each target. His own kunai hadn't hit a single bull's-eye._

"_How come you can do it, but not me?" he asked._

"_Silly little brother," Itachi says with a friendly lilt in his voice. "I am older than you and have had more training in school, that's why."_

_Sasuke blinked. "Oh."_

"_Someday you will go to school," Itachi told him. "Maybe you'll beat me next time."_

"_Nuh-uh," Sasuke whined. "You always go easy on me. That is cheating!"_

_Itachi bounced his brother up higher onto his back to keep him from sliding off. "It isn't cheating," he says. "It's being fair."_

_Sasuke giggled wrapped his arms tighter against his brother's neck._

"_Do that again!" he begged._

_Itachi stopped and turned slightly. "Do what?" He asked._

"_Bounce! Bounce me more, please!" The little boy smiled big and laughed. _

_Itachi chuckled and shifted his arms more securely around Sasuke's legs._

"_If I bounce you the whole way home, my back will hurt," he explained._

_The younger Uchiha frowned and grumbled something about "boring big brothers."_

"_Hey, be nicer," Itachi said. "Brothers should be nice to each other."_

"_I am nice!" Sasuke bursts out. "I do nice stuff all the time! I delivered you lunch to school when you forgot yesterday and I colored you a picture of a turtle and…"_

_Itachi remembered the picture. He hung it from his wall, right across from his bed so he'd see it first thing every morning. It was the first time Sasuke had honestly tried to stay inside the lines. Mother tried to convince the little boy that such a great picture belonged on the refrigerator, but Sasuke would hear nothing of it._

"_And I told you thank you after you taught me how to tie shoes, and I-"_

"_Sasuke," Itachi interrupted. "Can you see the Main Gate from here?"_

"_Yes!"_

"_What can you see?"_

_Sasuke stretched up slightly to get a better view of the Uchiha Main Gate._

"_It's a big square door with our fan on it."_

"_Good," he said. "There's a story behind that gate. Did you know that?"_

"_No!" Sasuke gasped._

"_Do you want to hear it?" Itachi smiled when he felt Sasuke's head shake up and down excitedly._

"_That gate was built by the first Hokage, shortly after the village was founded," he began. "It was a huge and thick gate made of dark polished oak from the forest. The Uchiha painted our symbol on it as a sign that this part of town belonged to us and that we are a mighty and loyal clan."_

_Itachi stopped a few yards away from the gate. "The Gate is very important, so we all take our turn replacing bits of it when we have to and repainting the crest as the old paint flakes away. Someday you'll be big enough to help, too."_

_Sasuke looked at the gate one more time._

"_Soon?"_

"_Yes," Itachi said. "Very soon."_

_Sasuke watched as Itachi walked over to the Gate. He removed one arm from Itachi's neck and helped his brother push it open. He placed his arm back once more as he started to wobble and lose his balance. Sasuke looked back up to see his father standing in front of them._

"_Itachi," he said in his deep, gruff voice. "You are aware that your teacher has requested you for after school tutoring?"_

"_Yes," he replied politely._

"_So go, then." He stepped closer and reached out to him. "Get on to school and I'll take Sasuke back home."_

"_Yes father." Itachi handed him off to his father and Sasuke was placed gently into the space between Father's arms and torso. "At once, father."_

_Sasuke stared ahead as Father carried him back home._

"'_Tachi-nii told me the story about the Gate," he said happily. Father cleared his throat and continued to walk silently home._

"_When will I be big enough to help fix the Gate?" Sasuke asked as he bit his lip and tried to get Father to talk to him._

_Father turned to look at him, and a few minutes later finally answered him._

"_It'll be a while."_

"_How long a while?"_

_Father continued to walk quietly back home and never answered his question._

_After mother fixed up his ankle, Sasuke limped back to his room and sat down at his tiny child's desk. He opened up the drawer and took out a sheet of paper and his crayon box. He used his brown crayon to make the shape of the Gate onto his paper, and then used the brown to color in everything but the crest. He took his brightest red crayon and finished the picture. He folded his paper in half, and on top of one side he printed in big letters:_

_**To Father, From Sasuke**_

_He stumbled into his father's home office and carefully placed the paper onto the top of father's desk before walking back to his room to go to sleep._

_The next morning when Sasuke woke up, the first thing he did was run over to Father's office. His picture had been taped up to the wall at eye level on the wall in front of the desk._

_Sasuke smiled and ran to the kitchen to get his breakfast._

_. . ._

Naruto woke up after hours of working in the hot sun nailing boards of wood together and staining them. The new gate wasn't as dark as the old one, but it looked a lot better. Naruto had spent the longest time painting the Uchiha fan onto his Gate.

Naruto checked his watch while walking back home for bed. It was the strangest dream…


	4. More Than Sasuke

**Thank you for all the supportive reviews! I shall continue to type out this fic in a timely fashion for you all.**

**I also have plans to put up a one-shot either later tonight or tomorrow afternoon. Keep an eye open for that!**

**Enjoy!**

**Disclaimer: I am not a Japanese male, nor is my name Masashi Kishimoto. Thus, I do not own Naruto.**

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><p>Naruto woke up in a much better mood than any other morning he'd ever had in the past few weeks. Maybe restoring the Uchiha district gave him a reason to want to wake up at all; maybe waking up earlier was just better for him. Naruto couldn't even remember a time when he had the opportunity to eat breakfast, and he enjoyed being able to eat a good meal in the morning before heading off to the Compound to get started on work.<p>

But it was that weird _**dream.**_ That dream that kept Naruto working even when he was exhausted. Naruto had no idea where it had come from in the slightest. He didn't even know if it had ever happened or not, or if he had just been hallucinating on wood varnish. He hadn't had any dreams since the one after fixing the Gate. Three buildings had been perfectly restored. Not one of them caused him to dream.

They did, however, have things inside that Naruto could not help but stare at in wonder. The first house had belonged to a bachelor. Or at least he never saw evidence of more than one man living inside it. Sasuke had clearly never touched any other home but his after the Uchiha Massacre. There was still a big pile of dirty laundry on the floor from all those years ago. Naruto had bent over to pick up one of the items in that pile. After almost eight years of not being touched, the long sleeved shirt he had picked up was stiff as a board. The bed was unmade, which made Naruto chuckle slightly before stopping out of shame. He had expected all Uchiha to be cocky and overachieving perfectionists who always made their beds, but the man who hadn't that day had died, and it seemed incredibly disrespectful to have a laugh at his post-mortem expense.

The second house had belonged to an elderly couple who at one point had been the parents of two daughters. Their house had still somehow smelled of old people. There was a thick inch of dust on every surface. Naruto picked up a small framed photograph and blew on it to remove the dust, and then wiped off the glass with his work handkerchief. It was an old picture, dated on the bottom right hand corner and taken almost forty years earlier. The couple looked much younger, and was smiling while resting their hands on the shoulders of two young girls. Naruto found himself surprised to see that not all Uchiha had dark hair. The younger of the two girls in the photo had pixie-cut light blonde hair that looked almost as light as Ino's own blonde locks. The rooms upstairs looked like they were still inhabited by young daughters, though Naruto knew from old cards and records in a drawer in the cabinet of the master bedroom that the eldest daughter had died on a mission shortly after becoming a Genin, and the younger one had perished during the Kyuubi rampage preceding his birth. Naruto couldn't help but feel sorry for the dead couple who had kept their daughter's rooms pristine in grief after losing them both.

The last house belonged to a middle-aged woman and her only son. Naruto found birth records in a safe box under the woman's bed. According to the young man's birth certificate, he'd been born out of wedlock when his mother was nineteen. The line on which the father's name would have been printed was blank. Naruto also uncovered a shoebox filled with old scraps of fabric and wooden figurines of cats and good luck symbols. On top of the pile was a letter, kept folded into thirds.

_Dearest Mother,_

_I understand that without me, the house feels smaller. However, I know that soon the problem will be fixed! Thank you very much for offering Aki the use of your mother's wedding dress for our upcoming nuptials. I hope that the invitation had arrived in a timely fashion, as I refuse to marry Aki unless I can see my most beloved mother sitting right up front with tears of happiness in her eyes. The old house will seem much fuller of love once there are some grandchildren for you to play with. Aki has expressed happiness at the thought of being a mother and we both agree that having children right away is best for us. I keep you in my thoughts and prayers every day, and I hope the same is granted to me from you._

_Your beloved son,_

_Seishiro_

There was no wedding. The date on the invitation Naruto had found wedged in a kitchen drawer was set a month after the Uchiha massacre had taken place. Climbing up the ladder to the attic, Naruto found a mannequin still wearing the dress. With no one to take care of it for the past several years, the dress had become tattered and moths had eaten several holes into the lace train. Naruto had closely inspected the hem of the gown. Not even a beautiful white wedding dress had escaped signs of death. Blood pools had dried around the seams of the hem and a few scant drops had landed onto the back of the dress. Naruto had no use for the dress, but he couldn't bring himself to pawn it off. A beautiful young woman had wanted this dress. He left it alone and locked the attic and threw the key deep into the forest, hopefully where he knew no one would ever find it again.

. . .

Naruto idly tapped his chopsticks together while the huge bowl of steaming hot ramen sat in front of him untouched.

"What's wrong, son?" Teuchi said as he wiped clean bowls dry with a white towel.

Naruto let the noodles in his chopsticks fall back to the bowl with a slight splash.

"Not much," Naruto sighed. "This project is harder than I thought it'd be."

"The best way to keep energy up for a project like yours is to get plenty of carbs," Teuchi said. "You want another bowl on the house?"

"Thanks, but no thanks," Naruto replied politely. "It's hard on me emotionally, not physically. I don't think any amount of carbs will fix that."

"Because of Sasuke?"

"Kind of," Naruto said. "He's part of it, but there's more. It isn't just Sasuke who had his life ruined that day. When I was fixing up houses yesterday I found out that all of them hadn't been touched since that night. It's like those houses are just waiting for the owners to come back to life and live in them again."

Teuchi placed a glass of water in front of the exhausted ninja.

"The Uchiha, if I remember correctly, kept to themselves, mostly. They were never too fond of people walking into their district uninvited. The village talked about it for a few days after the Massacre, and decided that even if they were dead, the Uchiha wouldn't want anyone walking through their land and touching their possessions. I'm not surprised you found those houses in that condition. It was left that way on purpose at the time."

"Did Sasuke ever mention going into any of those homes and trying to straighten things up a bit?"

Teuchi stacked bowls and glasses onto the shelf behind him.

"That kid was never the kind that would sit down for a meal and chat up the owner or wait staff. Quiet as hell, he was. Of course, he wasn't always that way."

Naruto drained the last dregs of broth from his bowl and fumbled around with his change purse for a tip.

"Hey now," Teuchi said cheerfully. "You don't tip here. Have a nice night, Naruto."

Naruto turned to walk off and gave a wave to the owner while walking away.

. . .

"Come on, Sakura!" Naruto complained. "I need that list before tomorrow!"

The pink haired kunoichi narrowed her eyes at her teammate.

"Gimme a break, Naruto," she said angrily. "There are a lot of file here, and it'll be a few minutes before I find the one for the Uchihas!"

Naruto sat cross-legged on one of the record keeper's desks and huffed impatiently. It was almost dark, and Naruto wanted to head home with the master list of every Uchiha who owned property in the district before going off for more repairs the next day. Naruto figured that since Sakura spent much of her time in the filing room, she'd have a better chance of finding it before his next birthday. He watched silently as Sakura shuffled though other files.

"Ueda, Umemoto…"

"…Uchiha?"

She shook her head. "Not yet, you impatient moron!"

Naruto yawned into his fist and leaned his back onto the top of the desk. What could a little nap hurt?

. . .

_Sasuke mumbled to himself as he munched on his rice ball and looked around the giant room._

"_Mama, can we go home yet?"_

_The young woman turned around and smiled at her four year old son._

"_Not yet, Sasuke. I still can't find that file for Father."_

_Sasuke hopped off of the chair he'd been placed on and toddled over to a filing cabinet a little taller than he was._

_He grasped the cool silver handle and yanked on it as hard as he could. The file cabinet drawer didn't open, but it did topple over and almost hit him. Papers on top of the cabinet were scattered all around the room._

"_Sasuke!" His mother yelled as she ran over to him and rubbed his back to comfort him. "Did the cabinet hit you?"_

"_No, Mama," Sasuke sniffled._

_Mama reached into her bag strapped onto her hips and pulled out a soft hankie._

"_You scratched up your knee a little," she said, pointing to the lightly bleeding cut. "Nothing a bandage can't fix."_

_Sasuke put the bandage on by himself while Mama wiped away the stray tears on his face with her hankie._

"_Don't cry," she said softly. "There's a trick to opening a file cabinet drawer. Do you want to see?"_

_Sasuke sniffed and nodded while burying his face deeper into Mama's hankie._

_She smiled and reached out for a still standing file cabinet. She kneeled next to her son and put her hand on the handle for the bottom drawer._

"_There's a button next to the handle. Can you see it?" she asked. _

"_Yes," her son replied quietly._

"_Push the button with your thumb toward the handle while pulling," she explained. "Then the drawer will-" The bottom drawer lid open easily as she showed her son how to pull it open._

_Sasuke wrapped his knees closer to his body and hugged them while he watched Mama shove the filing cabinet back upright. Two big men Sasuke had never seen before ran into the room and slammed the door open against the wall._

"_We heard a crash," the first one said. "Did anything happen in here?"_

_Mama stood and motioned to the filing cabinet behind her._

"_It just fell. I fixed it and it is still in good working order, I assure you."_

_The second man looked at Sasuke sitting on the floor._

"_Was it the boy's fault?"_

"_No," Mama lied. "And please don't talk about my son that way again. It's very rude of you to accuse Sasuke with no proof."_

_The second man sheepishly stared down at the ground._

"_I apologize, Ma'am," he replied. "However, I must ask that you and your young child pick up the stray files and re-file them properly before you leave. Filing room regulation, you know how it is."_

_Mama grinned as the men walked away. "Of course. Thank you and goodbye."_

_Sasuke wandered around the room and helped Mama pick up all the papers he dropped when the cabinet fell over. She put them back in order and placed them where they belonged._

"_Ah!" she exclaimed. "Here's what I was after!" She pointed to the characters Sasuke couldn't read yet and told him it was the Master Deed List._

"_Uchihas who own land on our compound are listed inside it." She said. "Let's go home and give it to Father, ok?"_

_Sasuke nodded enthusiastically and took Mama's hand as she led him back home._

. . .

Naruto woke up to a stinging face.

"Next time you ask for a favor," Sakura said grumpily, "You should at least have the decency to stay awake and help look."

Naruto rubbed his cheek from where Sakura had slapped him with the file. Across the top he read

_Master Deed List-Uchiha_

But what was with those weird dreams again?


	5. Moving Day

**Finally, after days of being lazy and not wanting to type, I have completed the next chapter! **

**I was also recently attacked by a rabid plot bunny, so soon you will all have a new one-shot to read. Please consider it a gift to all you lovely and supportive readers and reviewers!**

**Enjoy the new chapter!**

**Disclaimer: I still can't think of anything amusing to say about me not owning Naruto, and it frustrates me greatly. So like always, I dont own Naruto.**

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><p>Naruto ran his left index finger down the Master Deed List for what seemed like the thousandth time that night. His eyes squinted from pain as he peered at the names on this list through the dimming candlelight in the Hokage's library after hours. Yes, he was aware that being caught wouldn't be good, but if he went home to look through the document, he'd end up falling asleep. At least here he'd have a reason to stay awake. If he fell asleep in the library, Tsunade would catch him, and pissing off granny Tsunade was the stupidest thing a person could do.<p>

Naruto had always had trouble reading kanji, and he found it difficult to read a few of the names without the use of a dictionary. Naruto recalled years ago how when report card first came out in the Academy, Sasuke's name was written in katakana and was much easier to read. It wasn't fair. Naruto rubbed his eyes and blinked a few times to try to ward off sleep, but he found the idea of drifting off into slumber impossible to avoid at this late hour. His head lolled onto the thick dictionary, and soon the blond ninja was snoring.

. . .

"_Good work, team," Kakashi said cheerfully as Team 7 reached the village gate. They'd been gone for two weeks, and a "good work team" was all they got? Stupid stingy sensei._

_Sasuke turned his head toward the direction of the compound._

"_I assume this means we can all leave now?"_

"_Yes," Kakashi said calmly. "I suppose it does. However if you were inclined to stay, I will be treating Team 7 to barbeque. You are more than welcome to come with us."_

_Sasuke glanced at his teammates. Naruto had gone from dejected to gleefully happy in the space of one sentence. Sakura looked conflicted as her eyes darted from Sasuke to Kakashi and placed her hand on her growling stomach. Kakashi looked at Sasuke expectantly. Why did the masked man always ask Sasuke to come with him on those stupid team outings? He'd refused enough of them by now to make it clear he was never going to say yes._

"_Enjoy it without me, as usual."_

"_Very well, then." Kakashi motioned to the two remaining Genin behind him. "Come on Naruto; Sakura."_

"_Ummm…" The pink haired kunoichi mumbled. "I think I might just go home, too."_

_Kakashi raised an eyebrow._

"_As you wish. If you change your mind, you know where Naruto and I will be."_

_Sasuke shrugged and turned his back on the retreating Kakashi to begin his way home, only to stop when he felt a soft tugging on his shirt sleeve._

"_Sa-Sasuke," Sakura whispered. "Do you want to walk home together?"_

_Sasuke rolled his eyes and jerked his sleeve out of Sakura's grasp. When he saw the beginnings of tears forming at the corners of her eyes, he sighed and gritted his teeth. He'd be nicer to her…just this one time._

"_Sakura," he said slowly. "Your house is in the opposite direction. What good would walking home with me do?"_

"_I-I mean…"_

"_Go home, Sakura." He shoved his hands deeper into his pockets and ignored Sakura's whining pleas for him not to leave her standing there alone. Two seconds of silence later, he heard her screaming, "Kakashi-sensei! I changed my mind!" The sound of her scampering off back to Kakashi and Naruto made him sigh in relief. Sakura was a good team mate and a very smart girl, but she was also clingy and almost insufferable. She didn't seem to realize that he liked being alone._

_The paint on the Gate was starting to flake off again. The nail of his index finger scraped a few small shavings of bright red paint from the wood. He sighed and scratched behind his head in frustration. He didn't have the time or the money right now to fix it. Besides, he had more pressing matters to deal with. _

_Sasuke walked as quickly through the deserted district as he could. He closed his eyes tightly and ignored the slow creaking of the old shutters on the abandoned houses lining the streets. The wind and all the noise in this part of town scared him, and it was something he was deeply ashamed of. Nothing was supposed to scare him. He was an Uchiha, the very image of a calm and collected man who lived to inspire bravery in others. He wouldn't even admit his own fear to himself. The only clue to his fear was the increased pace he used to walk through the old unrenovated houses._

_Once home, he dropped his backpack on the wood floor. If Mama was still alive, she would have scolded him and told him to place it in his closet where it belonged. But she was long dead no matter how much Sasuke liked to ignore otherwise, and no yelling voice from the kitchen or laundry room came. He quickly made his way to his room and collapsed exhausted onto his bed and laid there silently for a few minutes trying to clear out his mind. _

_When he couldn't stand the inaction any longer, he groaned and lifted himself up and rummaged through the home storage for the old ladder. He lugged it outside and set it up next to an old support beam. He climbed the ladder rung by rung slowly and carefully. It wasn't the safest of ladders and Sasuke couldn't yet afford a sturdier metal one. He closely inspected the wooden beam and narrowed his eyes in annoyance. Damn wood rot. He just replaced that same beam last year!_

_Sasuke rested his forehead on the ladder rung in front of him and grumbled. After a minute of self-pity, he climbed back down to the ground and folded the ladder back up to place it back in storage._

"_That's quite a job for one boy."_

_The sound of Kakashi-sensei's voice made Sasuke's heat leap and he turned to face his teacher while trying to erase the shock from his face._

"_What the hell are _you_ doing here?" Sasuke said breathlessly with his hand still over his heart._

"_While meandering down the path of life," he began, "I had an inquiry about why my favorite Uchiha never spent time with his team. I had an increasing desire to follow the young lad home on particularly fine afternoon only to discover him teetering on a ladder looking for wood rot; something no self respecting twelve year old would ever willingly do."_

_Sasuke blinked and tilted his head curiously at his strange teacher._

"_You left Naruto and Sakura alone so you could stalk me?"_

"_I shudder to think that you imagine that I would ever stalk you," Kakashi intoned gently. "I was merely keeping tabs on you for your safety."_

"_In case you haven't noticed," Sasuke grouched, "I'm quite safe. So goodbye."_

"_You call climbing up a ladder far past its prime while checking your living quarters for signs of uninhabitable damage to be safe?"_

_Sasuke stared coldly at the grown man. Maybe he had a valid argument, but he refused to let him talk him into acknowledging it. _

"_You don't get it, do you?"_

"_Ah, he speaks!" Sasuke bit his lip to keep from yelling about the quip about him. "You should know by now that the Jonin have all been discussing plans for your move into the village."_

"_I am not moving!" Sasuke screamed. "This is MY house on MY land! You can't tell me what to do!"_

"_It is true that because of the severely decreased lifespan of a ninja, the ages of what one can and cannot do legally have been reduced. You are certainly correct that this is legally your land. However, you won't be of legal age to be considered an adult until you're sixteen, so yes I am afraid you must do as the village elders tell you to."_

"_If I leave," Sasuke said quietly, "The village elders will destroy my land."_

_Kakashi looked at the raven-haired Genin sympathetically. While still young, he was smart enough to know that "we'll look after your land for you until you're legally an adult" meant "we're going to destroy it and get rid of everything it used to stand for then build new things in it then pass it back to you, like it or not."_

"_I've argued on your behalf for the past several weeks on this and I'm starting to run out of ways to delay your move." Kakashi said._

"_Think harder!" The boy yelled before stomping back inside his house and slamming the door in his teacher's face._

_It was only a matter of weeks until the official notice for Sasuke to move out was mailed to him. If he were inclined to do so, he would have thrown a temper tantrum, but he wouldn't give those self-righteous elders the satisfaction of believing that Sasuke was less mature than he said he was._

_Sasuke watched silently as the movers lifted all his possessions onto a moving cart and hauled it off to downtown Konoha into a high rise apartment overlooking the popular Tea Avenue. Sasuke walked behind his house where the movers would be sure not to see him. His lip quivered uncontrollably and for the first time in four years, he felt tears streak down his face. He heaved into it quietly and tried to wipe away the evidence of his crying with his arm bands._

"_You don't have to hide it," he heard Kakashi say from behind him, startling him once more. "You're moving away from the only home you've ever known. You're allowed to cry. No one will think less of you for it or tease you because of it."_

_Sasuke sniffed and turned slowly to face his teacher. _

"_Why didn't you do anything?" He asked with the sound of his crying still clinging to his voice. "When I first found out they were going to do this, you promised you'd help me stay, but I'm moving anyway."_

"_I only have so much political power to do anything, Sasuke," the Jonin told him. "Trying to defend your clan's customs is difficult enough. Asking me to do away with the decree made by an elder is impossible, even for me."_

"_My father always said," Sasuke mumbled into his collar, "that someday it would be up to Itachi and me to take care of everything and everyone in here. Now I am disappointing his memory."_

"_If your father were alive, I'm sure he'd understand why you have to disregard his dream, at least temporarily."_

_Sasuke looked back up, still facing the wall of his now former home. He had finally stopped crying, but his face wasn't yet dry enough for him to feel comfortable coming out from behind his house._

"_If you believe that," he said sadly, "then you never really knew my father."_

_Sasuke walked out from behind the house back to where he'd been sitting before. He waved once dejectedly to the movers who wished him a good day as he walked out of the compound through the Great Uchiha Gate and into the village. Kakashi sighed. As much as he felt bad for the poor Uchiha, there was nothing he could do to convince the village elders that Sasuke was mature enough to handle his own land. Surely there was a law against repossessing land from the legal owner without just cause? Or was Sasuke's age considered a "just cause"? Kakashi watched as the movers exclaimed happily that all of Sasuke's personal items and furniture had been loaded up and they could finally move out. Once he was alone on the compound, he closed the Gate as tightly as he could and then carefully placed the orange CONDEMNED sticker over the Uchiha fan painted on front. _

_Later that night, Sasuke climbed into bed and stared at the ceiling from under his covers, willing himself to go to sleep. The sound of the marketplace under him never ceased, and the bright lights of downtown flooded his bedroom with a soft ambient light that kept it from being pitch black dark enough for him to get drowsy. The flashing and moving of these lights disrupted him every time he felt himself getting sleepy. He hated his new place already; it was too loud, and it wasn't really home._


	6. Sakura's Family Matters

**I know it's been a while since my last update, but between my compass test, college orientation, and job hunting, I have close to zero free time. I'm still trying to have somewhat regular updating, but as time goes by this summer, it might be more difficult. Don't hold it against me... heh. :|**

**Please enjoy this new chapter!**

**Disclaimer: Naruto = not mine. I probably couldn't even afford to change that. **

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><p>Naruto's eyes blinked rapidly as the early morning sun shone on his face through the library window. He lifted his head slightly and looked down on the dictionary he'd slept on. A thin line of drool connected his mouth and the sizeable stain on the page. His eyes shifted, looking at the open doorway for anyone passing by before closing the book and replacing it secretly. His finger trailed down the spine of the book. He glanced up at the bookshelf full of old books that hadn't been opened in quite a while. The dictionary he'd put back rested next to an English dictionary and something written in a script he couldn't read. He pulled the book out and blew on the dusty cover. The book was a collection of runes found in an ancient cave in Iwa. It was something Naruto didn't need, but the library was full of old books and records that could help him.<p>

He walked his way slowly through the massive shelves, looking for something helpful. There was an entire section on high level water jutsu that Naruto had no interest in, as well as huge atlases and map books that Naruto decided he'd look through later. There were books on how to build and maintain your own specialty weapons that looked like they were used quite frequently. Naruto suspected that TenTen got a lot of use out of them. He grabbed a random book off the shelf and opened it to a page near the middle.

_The Mace is an excellent choice for a battering club for those who choose to concentrate on the brute force aspects of enemy assassination. However, it requires a bit of strength to use, and if strength training is not an important part of the training you do, it is not a good choice for combat weapon. Shinobi who concentrate on mid or long range weapon choices should stick with shuriken or kunai. For those with superior concentration and are quick learners, archery is also a good choice._

Naruto placed the book back on the shelf and continued rummaging around on the back shelves. One whole shelf was tucked into a back corner and was filled with older medical textbooks. Naruto fidgeted with the blinds on the window next to the shelf and the bookcase was flooded with sunlight, making everything easier to read.

"Repairing Damage to Limbs, Poisons and Antidotes, Household Remedies… How does Sakura stand reading all this?" Naruto wondered out loud.

There were several books on healing wounds and getting rid of sickness; but Naruto was after information on the human mind. Naruto figured he'd have to ask someone specialized in medicine. He opened the door to leave to Hokage's main building. Perhaps it was time he visited Sakura.

. . .

Naruto stood in front of the door of the small house in the residential part of the village. He gulped loudly and raised a shaky fist to knock on the door. It was still fairly early, and Naruto was afraid of what Sakura might do if he woke her up. Last time he woke her up early, he found out just how strong she'd gotten. Lesson Learned: A beautiful sunrise is not a good enough excuse to wake someone up at 5:00 AM when on a mission.

Naruto heard some rustling going on from inside the house and felt a little better. Maybe Sakura was awake after all. He knocked on the door a few times softly and waited for her to open the door. He adjusted the large clay flowerpot next to the door in the meantime brushed his left hand through his hair. He wished he had a mirror. He must look awful after sleeping on a dictionary all night.

The person who opened the door was most certainly not Sakura. For one, Sakura was not male, nor was she that tall. The man was almost as tall as Jiraiya-sensei and at least a decade or so younger than the pervy sage. His hair must have at some point been bright red, but now it was graying with age. The expression on his face was serious but calming.

"Excuse me," Naruto said politely. "I'm wondering if Sakura is awake yet."

The man's serious face lightened up a bit and he smiled.

"My daughter?" he asked. "She hasn't woken up yet, but if you give me a minute, I'll get her for you. Better me that wakes her rather than you. My little girl isn't a morning person." He smiled sympathetically at Naruto Something in Naruto's mind told him that Sakura's father knew about his daughter's violent temper, even if she didn't lash out at her own family.

Naruto walked into the house and pulled out a chair from the table in the kitchen near the door. A woman Naruto figured must be Sakura's mother stood next to a full sink scrubbing dishes. She turned her head toward him and smiled. She motioned her head to the rice cooker on the counter behind her.

"Could you… if you don't mind?"

"What, help with your rice cooker? No problem!" Naruto replied cheerfully.

The timer on the cooker clicked and the buzzer rang. Naruto looked around for a bowl in the cupboard over his head and found a glazed pink one. He scooped up some fresh, hot rice and placed it into the bowl and on the table. He watched as Sakura's mother placed a pair of chopsticks on the rest next to the bowl and laid an egg and soy sauce next to it all.

"Sakura will be up soon," her father said as he sat himself at the table. "She's getting dressed."

"What do you need her for so early anyway?" her mother asked as she set a rice bowl in front of him.

"Her medical expertise," Naruto said smiling. "It could have waited until later, but I was afraid I'd forget."

"She might not be very helpful yet, young man," her father said calmly. "She's always so groggy in the morning."

"Are you one of her little team mates?" Sakura's mother asked.

"Yes! My name is Naruto."

Sakura's mother grinned and handed Naruto a pair of chopsticks.

"You must be the other boy," she mused. "The one she rarely talked about. The one she always spoke of had a different name. What was it, dear?"

"I'm not sure I recall," he said. "It wasn't the blond one." He nodded to Naruto.

"The good looking one," Sakura's mother called from the kitchen. "Not that you aren't cute in your own right." Naruto lowered his head to his rice bowl. He was used to that particular unintentional insult. Sasuke was always "the handsome one" or "the pretty boy one" or "the one with talent and promise." Naruto resigned himself to the fact that he was always going to be "the other one" in Team 7.

"You mean Sasuke?" Naruto asked.

"Ah, yes!" Sakura's mother said. "That was his name. She was always talking about him. Not so much anymore. Her infatuation must have worn off."

"I for one am glad it wore off," her father grumbled. "My only child deserves the attention of someone nicer and more gentlemanly." The rant had a hint of an old argument to it.

Naruto scraped at the few remaining rice grains in his bowl with the chopsticks before setting them back down.

"I don't want to sound rude," he started. "But how can you both be so calm and stoic when Sakura- "

"Has a wider range of emotions?" Her father finished for him. "I'm not sure. It seems to be unique to her because no one else in our family has a temper like hers. I guess there are some things I'll never know about that girl, which disappoints me. I **am** her father after all… unless there's something my wife isn't telling me," he smirked.

She playfully smacked his head with her spatula.

"That isn't even funny to joke about," Mrs. Haruno said.

Naruto settled back comfortably in his chair and put the chopsticks down. The noise from the kitchen table had apparently gotten Sakura to get going faster, although the end result was sloppy. Her hair hadn't been combed yet, and her clothes were still rumpled in spots. She sat down next to Naruto in front of her bowl, cracked the egg into her rice, and added some soy sauce and mixed everything together.

"Naruto," she yawned. "Why did you need me this early?"

"How much do you know about sleeping and dreams?" He asked.

Sakura finished breakfast and stretched out her arms over her head and yawned once more. Sakura's father got up from his chair and patted his daughter on the head.

"I'll be in Tanzaku for a few days on an espionage mission," he said. "Be good to your mother," he said as he kissed her forehead.

"Bye dad." Sakura rose from her seat and ran down the hallway back to her room. After a few minutes, she came back with a very thick book under her arms. She began carefully flipping through the old yellow pages.

"Are you still having trouble sleeping? Because I'm sure there's a sleeping aid recipe in here somewhere."

"It isn't that," Naruto said shaking his head no.

Sakura flipped the book back to the Table of Contents in front.

"What is it, then?"

"I've been having weird dreams lately," he said slowly. "As in, you know, these really weird and vivid dreams."

Sakura began flipping through the book once more.

"Bad diet probably taking a toll on your sleeping then," she said. "Stop eating late at night, and eat a more balanced diet. Man cannot live on ramen alone, you nutcase."

"It isn't my food!" Naruto protested. "Ever since I started rebuilding the Uchiha compound, I get really sleepy and then I have weird dreams about Sasuke."

Sakura blinked and closed the book gently.

"What kind of dreams?"

Naruto took in a deep breath and started from the beginning.

"Well, at first I was working on The Gate, and I fell asleep after putting it back on the hinges and I had a dream about Sasuke when he was still a toddler. I thought it was because I was sleeping so close to the wood staining, but then it happened again!"

"There was more than one?" Sakura said with concern as she once again began flipping through the book.

"Yeah. Remember when I asked you for the Master Deed List? Before you woke me up by slapping me with it, I had a dream about Sasuke and his mother. They were in the same room we were. It felt like I was there watching it, you know? Like a ghost."

"And remember the day Sasuke had to move?" Naruto continued.

Sakura bit her lip.

"Yes, I do. He was grumpy and snappy for weeks afterward."

Naruto snorted.

"That bastard was ALWAYS grumpy and snappy. He was just more grumpy and snappy than usual."

"Do you have a point?" Sakura said, rubbing her temples with her fingers.

"I had another dream just last night about Sasuke when he had to move. Hell, I watched him _cry._ I mean, when was the last time he ever cried? As a baby, probably, that stupid, emotionless…" Naruto trailed off mumbling.

"Are you sure that it isn't just because you're exhausting yourself working on his land? If you were fixing up Hyuuga land, maybe you'd be having weird dreams about Neji."

Naruto shuddered.

"Don't say that. Don't even **think** that. Now I'm going to have nightmares about Neji Hyuuga, and it's all your fault."

Sakura giggled and skimmed through her book. She flipped page after page for what seemed like hours, but her confused expression never changed. Sakura finally closed the book and shook her head. There was nothing in there to help him.

"There isn't anything in my study book about that," Sakura said. "But maybe that's because it's advanced stuff. We should go ask Lady Tsunade."

Naruto sighed and lifted himself out of his chair.

"I guess. Let's go visit Granny and see if she can help me."

Naruto thought to himself on the walk back to the Hokage's office. If anyone could make these dreams stop, it had to be Granny Tsunade, right?


	7. A Strange Concept to Grasp

**And the new chapter is out! I hope my explanations in this chapter are easy to understand. If not, pm me with any questions and I'll try to clear them up. :)**

**Enjoy, and thank you for liking and reviewing my story!**

**Disclaimer: Me no own, you no sue. Easy peasy, huh?**

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><p>Naruto stood on Sakura's front porch and watched as she adjusted the bag strapped over her shoulder and resting on her hip. She buckled the burlap flap over it and turned to go back to Lady Tsunade's office, then stopped when she noticed Naruto's hesitation to follow.<p>

"What is it? I thought this trip was important to you." she said as she sighed.

"Yeah it is," Naruto said, "but I want to back to the hardware store to pay off this week's tab first."

"Why now?" she asked as she gritted her teeth together in frustration. "We're doing something important! Why do you want to go do that NOW of all times?"

Naruto shifted his weight from one foot to the other shyly.

"I just thought, you know, that I could get it out of the way."

Sakura clenched her fists at her side and tightly closed her eyes, trying to keep her anger manageable.

"C'mon Sakura," he begged. "I'll treat you to something afterward."

Sakura groaned and loosened her clenched fists in defeat.

"Fine. But if you take too long or if this was totally pointless I swear I'm going to make you miserable."

They walked slowly, if only because Sakura's pace wasn't as fast and energetic as it had been before. Her eyes remained firmly fixed to the ground ahead of her. Naruto, always oblivious, cheerfully walked on at a faster pace. If the villagers didn't know better, they'd swear he was _skipping._

The top of Sakura's head hit the wood door frame of the store, waking her from her walking daze. She shook it off and weaved through the crowd of customers looking for her team mate. She wandered around and found herself stranded in the middle of the store alone and without Naruto. How could someone who wore too much orange be so difficult to find?

. . .

_Itachi coughed softly into his closed fist as the sawdust on the floor got picked up by a gust of wind when the door of the shop was opened. The bell on the door tinged several times in a row as the long line of new customers walked into the Hardware store._

_Sasuke wiped his nose absentmindedly onto his shirt sleeve and leaned on a shelf of large metal pipes. He looked over at Itachi standing with his back toward the little boy as his eyes scanned the shelf in front of him. Sasuke scrunched his face in anger. He didn't want to be here. They were supposed to be at home playing like Itachi promised. He never kept his promises. When Itachi saw Father by the door putting on shoes, he walked over and asked what he was doing. He then promptly promised to do Father's errands for him. _

"_Are you any closer to finding that mead pipe?" He asked as he yawned in boredom._

"_It's _lead _pipe, not mead pipe. And no, I haven't found it yet. Go ask the nice man where one might be for me, would you?"_

"_You got legs," Sasuke grumbled. "You can go ask yourself."_

_Itachi smiled and patted his brother's head. Sasuke was convinced he'd won this one argument until Itachi poked his forehead._

"_Ask for that pipe."_

_Sasuke mumbled incoherently as he walked over to the large counter at the front of the store where the elderly owner stood. Sasuke was too short to be seen from in front of the counter and jumped several times to ring the bell for assistance on top. He finally succeeded and his little hand hit the bell._

_The old man snorted awake from dozing and looked rapidly from side to side._

"_Who…wha…?"_

"_Down here!" Sasuke squeaked as he continued to jump from in front of the counter._

"_What? Oh, hello young man!" The man said kindly as he pushed his glasses up higher on his nose._

"_I need a mead pipe," Sasuke told him._

_The man furrowed his brow in confusion. He turned to the shelf under his counter and pulled out a big book. He flipped through the pages quickly, stopping every once in a while before continuing on after sighing in false alarm._

"_I'm sorry, little guy, but I don't have any mead pipes. I have some lead pipes in the storage room. That's probably close to the same thing."_

"_Yeah, lead pipes. Whatever. I need one, please."_

_The owner adjusted his khaki colored apron and walked over to a large metal door in the back right corner of the store. Sasuke ran back to the isle for Itachi._

"_Itachi! I got your mead pipe for you!"_

"_It's lead pipe," Itachi droned. "Anyway, good work. If we get it home now, we should still have plenty of time left to play leap frog. Or if you prefer, to help Mother do a crossword puzzle."_

_Sasuke grinned and lead his brother out the door._

"_Sasuke, stop! I can't carry the pipe by myself!"_

. . .

"So you leave me alone in the middle of a hardware store filled with weird old guys so you go take a NAP in the corner?" Sakura yelled as she landed he fist on the top of Naruto's head.

"I didn't mean to!" he insisted. "I paid my tab, and then I lost consciousness and landed in the corner. I swear!"

Naruto stood up on shaky legs and supported himself on the wall behind him while he took a few deep breaths.

"It happened again," he mumbled.

"What happened again?" Sakura asked.

"The dreams! Itachi! Sasuke! Mead pipes! Leap frog!"

"Leap frog?" Sakura repeated.

"Never mind. But it happened again."

"That's it!" Sakura proclaimed as she dragged Naruto by the elbow to Lady Tsunade's office. "We're talking to Lady Tsunade RIGHT NOW."

Naruto sighed and allowed himself to be manhandled down the road, ignoring the giggles and snickers from the villagers staring at the spectacle.

. . .

"Alright," Lady Tsunade said. "Repeat that one more time, only this time be slower and more coherent."

Naruto gulped and started his story over.

"When I started rebuilding the Uchiha compound, I began with the Gate. After I bolted the Gate to its hinges, I felt tired, so I decided to take a short nap. I had this weird dream about Sasuke when he was smaller, but it didn't exactly feel like a dream. I felt like I was there with them, only they couldn't see or hear me." He said.

"Continue," Lady Tsunade said.

"I thought that it was because I was sleeping so close to the wood varnish, but it happened again and again. I had one just a few minutes before I got here to talk to you. I even had one right here in this building. Two, actually! One in the records room and another in the library."

Lady Tsunade sat in her desk with her hands folded in front of her face, thinking silently for a few minutes.

"Let me check something."

She got up from her desk and woke Shizune from her slumber on the chair in the corner of the room.

"Shizune, wake up!" she said. "I need you to go to my private safe and bring me the book."

"Y-you mean," she stuttered. "THAT Book?"

"Yes," Lady Tsunade nodded. "That book. It may be an emergency."

Naruto shuddered. An emergency? Was there something wrong with him? Naruto bit on one of the joints of his index finger and waited.

Lady Tsunade lugged the large leather-bound book and slammed it onto her desk and flipped through the numerous pages. Lady Tsunade's special book was nearly five times the thickness of the Dictionary Naruto had woken up on this morning, and the width of its pages and covers took up most of the available desk space.

"Naruto," Lady Tsunade asked, stopping on a page halfway through her massive book. "Do you know what tainted chakra is?"

"I left my chakra out of the refrigerator?"

"No, you moron!" Sakura scolded. "Tainted chakra is when the chakra you have naturally is mixed with chakra from some other source for an extended period of time. Normally, some small mixing is normal, but it doesn't usually last long and it doesn't cause this. But when the chakra you produce naturally on your own is mixed with a foreign chakra source for a while, the chakra made by you becomes tainted. Lady Tsunade, what does that have to do with Naruto? I thought only pregnant women suffered from tainted chakra?"

"I'm Pregnant?" Naruto yelled; his eyes nearly bulging from their sockets.

"You aren't pregnant. Didn't anyone ever teach you that it's impossible for men to get pregnant?" Lady Tsunade said.

"You're right, you're right," Naruto said, calming down. "Sorry about that. I overreacted."

Lady Tsunade cleared her throat and continued.

"Some people are born with an unusual chakra," she said. "Unlike the aura of chakra that naturally surrounds us that a sensor can read and detect, these people also create additional chakra stores around them called residual chakra. Unlike aural chakra, residual chakra can be manipulated externally and can bond with a physical object or place."

"What do you mean, 'bond'?" Sakura asked.

"Residual chakra contains bits of the owner's personality and memories, feelings, et cetera. When it bonds with an object or place, it no longer travels around with the person who created it. It imprints itself to the object or location until someone picks up on it and reads it."

"So you think…" Naruto began.

"I believe Sasuke might be one of those individuals that can create residual chakra, yes."

"Wait," Sakura interrupted. "Why wasn't this in my medical textbook?"

"The ability to create and bond residual chakra is a very rare ability. Some medics don't even think it really exists. They believe that residual chakra is either a myth or some bloodline limit that died out a long time ago. There hasn't been any sort of case on it for over three centuries. If Sasuke is someone with this ability, he clearly had no idea about what his chakra was doing. If he had known that he created and bonded chakra memories to places, he would've removed them when he left Konoha. I don't think he realized he'd left bits of his memory around."

"Those dreams Naruto had were in places where everyone goes all the time," Sakura said. "Why are they only now just being read?"

Lady Tsunade lowered herself gently back down to her chair.

"Naruto is the Kyuubi host. Regardless of the seal placed on him by the Yondaime, his chakra is still mixing continuously with the Kyuubi's chakra. By virtue of being a Jinchuuriki, Naruto's chakra is tainted, and only people with tainted chakra can read bonded residual chakra."

Naruto rested his left hand onto his stomach where the seal was. The thing inside of him was doing weird things to him all the time, and Naruto assumed that over time he'd get used to it. But now, being the Kyuubi's host was doing something Naruto never suspected. He was taking peeks at Sasuke's history. Lady Tsunade stood up once more and walked over to Naruto, placing her hand on his shoulder and squeezing it softly.

"Naruto's chakra is tainted at a much higher level than a pregnant kunoichi's level would be. When pregnant, chakra remains tainted only for the gestational period, then goes back to normal after the child is born and the second source of chakra mixing with the mother's is external rather than internal. Naruto has had tainted chakra all his life, and as long as he remains the Kyuubi's host, his chakra will always be tainted."

"So being tainted…is a bad thing?" Naruto asked.

Lady Tsunade shook her head.

"Not a bad thing, per se, just unpredictable and unstable. In fact, tainted chakra is probably one of the reasons you always had trouble with ninjutsu back when you were younger. But now you have it under control and your ninjutsu skills are on par with everyone else's if not better. See? It isn't always a bad thing."

"I must warn you, though," Lady Tsunade continued gravely. "If you continue to read the residual chakra, it could have less than desirable side effects. Be careful."

Naruto nodded and followed sakura back out to the street.

"I promised you I'd treat you," Naruto said. "Let's go get coffee or something."


	8. A Potential Coffee Pickpocket

**Sorry for the long wait on this chapter. It was a mixture of me being lazy and me being busy.**

**I had a job interview today at a shoe store, and I think it went fairly well. (let's all keep our fingers crossed for me!) If I do get this job, then the space between updates might be as long as this one was. Thanks for understanding.**

**Thanks for reading and reviewing, I hope you enjoy!**

**Disclaimer: I can only pretend that I own Naruto for so long. Then I wake up and remember that it actually belongs to Masashi Kishimoto, So dont sue me.**

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><p>Sakura crossed her legs under the small circular table at the coffeehouse. She shifted into her seat. She sighed quietly, looking down into the cup and saucer sitting in front of her. Her left index finger pushed down on the demitasse spoon sitting vertically in the small ceramic cup. She moved her hand and the little spoon fell over and the handle clinked against the side. The cup remained on the saucer still full; Sakura hadn't even tasted one sip of the drink.<p>

Sakura lifted the spoon out and wiped in clean on a napkin. She set it down onto the table, still grasping the small handle. She stared down at the floor, fiddling with the spoon still in her fingers. Her other hand moved up to her eyes to brush away the sleep still lingering there. She licked her lips and finally let go of her spoon before reaching into her burlap pack and pulling out several sheets of paper copied from Lady Tsunade's book and stapled together. Naruto heard the rustling of the papers and looked up from his own coffee cup.

"You gonna finish that?" He reached across the table for her cup. She shrugged and pushed her cup and saucer towards him.

"You want a little coffee with your sugar, Naruto?" Sakura teased.

Naruto looked down into his near empty cup of sugary syrup laden coffee and licked some of the excess whipped cream off his top lip.

"I can't drink it any other way," he said, dumping several sugar packets and creams into Sakura's drink. "It's so bitter."

"Coffee is supposed to be bitter," she responded. "You need to stop eating so much sugar. It isn't good for your health."

"Since when did you become concerned with my health?"

"Consider me your personal nurse starting now. The copies from Lady Tsunade's book have me worried. Even someone with your healing abilities isn't safe from the side effects of reading this residual chakra stuff."

Naruto closed his eyes and remembered back to the Chuunin exams and all the fights he'd gotten himself into. Hinata had once given him a healing salve that seemed to fix up all his cuts and bruises instantly, but he'd figured out long ago that it wasn't the salve at all. His miraculous healing power stemmed from the Kyuubi's chakra trying to keep him from getting hurt and dying and killing off the Kyuubi in the process. His thoughts wandered off from hurting himself to imagining Sakura dressed up like a nurse and leaning over him to take his temperature. Naruto was very grateful for the fact that Sakura could not read minds.

"How bad could it be?" he mumbled into his cup.

"Your chakra is already tainted as it is. Mixing in Sasuke's chakra can't be good for you. For a normal ninja having just two chakras mixing together can cause a loss of some amount of the lifespan. It doesn't matter to me if you're a long living Uzumaki. Having three chakras mixing around in your system is a bad thing."

Naruto grumbled and grabbed for Sakura's spoon. He peeked up to her through his hair. He watched as Sakura shook her head flipped through more pages of the packet.

"Are you ready?" she asked when he lifted his head back up.

Naruto cocked his head to the side.

"For what?"

"For me to get rid of the problem for you. It's a simple genjutsu. So far, you seem to be alright with reading the imprinted chakra, but it won't always be like that. The genjutsu won't interfere with your plans to rebuild the Uchiha district, all it'll do is put up an illusion so that you know if you're getting close to imprinted chakra and you can back away before you touch it."

Naruto bit his lower lip and shook his head slowly.

"Nope. Not gonna happen. I won't go under genjutsu. All I have to do is avoid where the chakra was specifically imprinted, right? How hard could that be?"

"You've already had a number of these dreams," Sakura said. "You obviously have no idea how to avoid them on your own. What's wrong with a little help?"

"What's wrong is the fact that you think I need a genjutsu on me to warn me when it's going to happen! I can take care of myself. Besides…"

"Besides what?" Sakura snapped.

"Besides… I don't want to stop having them."

Sakura stood up from her chair angrily and swiped the cups and spoons on the table off to the floor.

"Are you _**insane?**_" she said harshly. "Didn't you hear what I said? Every dream you have zaps away a portion of your lifespan! I'll be damned if I let you waste away chunks of your life just so you can keep dreaming!"

"Sakura," Naruto whispered. "Don't you get it? Even if Sasuke didn't know he was doing it, he was leaving behind memories that he thought were too important to forget. I think we owe it to him…we _all_ owe it to him, to understand him more."

Sakura took a large breath and exhaled deeply to calm herself down. She knew that no matter what she said, she could never convince Naruto to give up and go under genjutsu. She admitted he had a point, but she couldn't see how understanding Sasuke's life was worth gambling away his lifespan. She wouldn't do it, but then again Naruto had a habit of doing things in the most dangerous way possible. The most she could do was keep him safe when he had the dreams. She'd already promised him she'd be his nurse.

"Fine," she said curtly. "I won't use the genjutsu on you. But you feel woozy or sleepy in any way, you tell me so that you don't collapse and give yourself a concussion. Nobody needs a repeat of the hardware store this morning."

Naruto chuckled.

"I didn't know Sasuke imprinted on that back corner. What did the owner say?"

"He didn't see you," Sakura shrugged. "I dragged you out of there before anyone could see you."

Naruto snorted and reached down to his pocket for his wallet. He pulled out a small fistful of bills.

"Leaving already?" Sakura teased.

"That is for you to pay for breaking the cups and stuff you shoved off the table. You scared the poor waitress."

Sakura's eyes narrowed.

"I have to pay for them?"

"Y-you broke them!" Naruto stuttered. "Besides, it's my money you're using, not your own."

The carrot cake Naruto ordered arrived just as Sakura was handing the girl at the register Naruto's money. He watched as she quietly bowed and asked for forgiveness. The register girl smiled and waved her back to her seat. Naruto wondered if the apology had really been accepted or if the register girl was too afraid of Sakura to do anything further.

"Alright," Sakura said as she got back up into her chair. "I think we both agree that from now on, I'm helping you. What have you done so far?"

Naruto took a bite of cake and licked the frosting off his fork. He swallowed and wiped his mouth on his napkin before answering.

"Most of the houses are stable and in good condition now," he said. "I still want to clean up their cemetery and some of the shops need work. I'm saving Sasuke's house for last."

Sakura nodded and stole some frosting off Naruto's cake.

"So the Master Deed List was for…"

Naruto grinned and showed Sakura a small notebook with the names of every Uchiha that owned a home or shop in the district.

"I copied their names of that list along with their addresses. Whenever I finish a property, I put a checkmark next to their name."

Sakura flipped through the several pages of names. Each name was written on the lines below the last one, with no spaces between them. Sakura rubbed the pencil lead dust off her fingers and looked at the large number of checks on the paper. Naruto had already managed to most everything by himself.

Sakura took out her own notebook and began copying the names and addresses yet to work on onto her own paper. The new list was only half a page long.

"Just because I'm almost done building doesn't mean I'm done helping Sasuke," Naruto said. "I want to find out as much about him as I can. He told me that he had a family and that I'd never understand him. Maybe if I can learn more personal stuff about him and his family, I can convince him to come back and stay."

"You do have a point," Sakura sighed. "If you're going to get Sasuke to come back and stay, you'd need an arsenal of information about him to rebuff any arguments about his family that he might use against you."

"I'm never in the library or records room anyway," Naruto said. "Everyone's always telling me to read up and get smarter. This way, I can try."

Sakura nodded.

"There may be more imprints in the records room than the one you had earlier. You're going to have to be careful where you sit or what you touch. You can't get into the records room without me anyway, so no problems there."

"Can we find everything in the records?" Naruto asked.

"Academics, medical info, personal info on clan members, maybe even some classified stuff," Sakura counted off on her fingers. "The Uchiha filed away things themselves sometimes. Things no records room workers would have seen."

"As in like things about why Itachi killed his clan?"

"Sure, Itachi killed everyone but Sasuke, but decided to write why on a piece of paper and file it away before leaving," Sakura said sarcastically.

"Ok, maybe that one was just wishful thinking," Naruto said. "But maybe they left some sort of clue of why Itachi thought they deserved it?"

"The Uchiha did seem like the kind of people who'd record everything about everything," Sakura conceded.

"So I'll meet you tomorrow in front of the Uchiha District Gate and we can get to work!" Naruto said cheerfully.

"Great!" Sakura got out of her chair.

Naruto left a large tip to the poor waitress, and paid the register girl for everything. He tried to apologize on Sakura's behalf, but the girl waved him out of the store. So Sakura HAD scared the poor register girl…

Naruto walked out of the café door and found Sakura still waiting for him.

"I figured as long as we were out here, we could go back to the records room and put the Master Deed List back into the Deeds folder."

"Actually I wanted to get back home," Naruto fussed around with his pack. "Could you take it and return it for me?"

Sakura groaned and rolled her eyes.

"Fine, hand it over." She held her hand out and waited for Naruto to hand her the list.

Naruto searched through his pack, and found nothing. He looked into the bag curiously and searched through it once more. Still nothing. He'd left his pack open at the café, but he didn't feel it fall out or anything. It had to be on him somewhere.

"Sakura," Naruto said nervously. "I think we have a problem."

"You didn't…"

"I didn't lose it!" He protested. "It was in my pack at the café. I think," Naruto gulped.

"I think someone may have stolen it."


	9. The Thief's Identity: Revealed!

**I am now officially a college student enrolled in classes! (Yay!)**

**Due to the fact that I now have to work strange hours for my job and school, I have changed up the way I do things now.**

**Instead of typing things out a little every day like I do now, my new typing/updating days will now be Tuesdays and Thursdays. As a history major, I have classes every day, but on tuesdays I have the afternoons off, and on thursdays I only have my morning American History class. All other days I have a Western Civilization History class/ Educator's Program block, and I have very little free time.**

**I hope the changes will be easy for both myself and readers to adapt to. I don't want to stop writing fics, as I find it enjoyable though I am just a beginner.**

**Enjoy!**

**Disclaimer: I couldn't draw a stick figure to save my life, thus it should be obvious that I do not own Naruto.**

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><p>"STOLEN?" Sakura screamed as Naruto crept back farther into the street.<p>

"There's no other explanation, Sakura," Naruto stuttered. "I know I didn't lose it. Even I'm not stupid enough to lose such an important document."

Sakura groaned breathed in and out deeply in an attempt to calm down. Stolen things were not Naruto's fault. But no matter how much she told this to herself in her mind, she couldn't help but want to blame him.

Naruto paced on the dirt road outside of the café, taking in deep breathes to keep himself from freaking out. How had it managed to disappear when he was taking it with him everywhere specifically to avoid this situation? He distinctly remembered putting it into his pack before leaving that morning. The only place he'd been to today that didn't have tight security was the coffee shop.

"Sakura," Naruto said to break the uncomfortable silence. "Did you see anyone but us in the coffee shop this morning?"

"I wasn't keeping an eye on anyone today," Sakura said. "I was under the impression that we were on a break."

Naruto felt his stomach churn in discomfort. He'd lost a piece of Konoha's legal records. The thought of him having to answer to the village elders for this mishap flew through his mind and he knew that no matter how much of the village liked him now, they would not show him any leniency. He could land himself in prison for losing it. Prison was the opposite of where he'd always dreamed of ending up in the village. Being arrested would put an end to his plans to become Hokage. The Daimyo would never let an ex-con take up the mantle.

"Oh my God," Naruto mumbled. "I'm going to jail. I'm going to jail and I'll end up as the cell mate of a large, scary man who'll make me his girlfriend…"

Naruto felt his face connect with Sakura's fist. The pain woke him up from his fearful stupor.

"If we can find out who took it, then you won't have to pay for losing it, you dunce," she snapped.

"Who'd want a stupid piece of paper, anyway?" Naruto mused. "It isn't an actual deed, it's a deed list."

"Maybe whoever took it didn't know the difference," Sakura replied. "In any case, that paper is useless to anyone who would want to exploit it for money. The Deed List itself isn't worth anything and there are no Uchiha left in Konoha that would petition for it back. The only reason it's still in our files is because it's classified as ownership information."

"Doesn't mean I'd be in any less trouble for losing track of it," Naruto sighed.

"You said you had it with you for sure up until we left the coffee shop, correct?"

Naruto though back to waking up and then all through his day up until the unfortunate discovery. Naruto looked back up at Sakura and nodded. There was no place else he could have let it out of his sight.

"Let's retrace our steps," Sakura suggested. "We might not be able to find it ourselves, but maybe we can get confirmation that there's a thief in the village."

"That register girl surely would've seen someone reaching into my pack, even if I didn't see anyone myself." Naruto crossed his fingers, hoping he'd be right.

Sakura and Naruto turned around and ran back to the coffee shop. Sakura pushed the door open forcefully and came to a full stop inside the shop, leaning her hands on her knees while catching her breath.

The girl behind the counter lifted her head up from the clear plastic cooler showing off the various baked goods and treats the shop offered and pursed her lips together in amusement.

"Can I help you, miss?"

Sakura nodded, still heaving. Naruto sauntered in behind her.

"Hey you!" Naruto called to the girl cheerfully. "Remember us from earlier?"

The girl blinked and cocked her head to the side in confusion.

"Yeah, I do. Why?"

"Good!" Naruto said. "Now, do you remember seeing anyone suspicious looking coming in at the same time we were here?"

The coffee shop girl yawned and shook her head in annoyance.

"Define 'suspicious'," she said tediously.

"Suspicious," Sakura began after finally regaining her breath. "As in, 'shady looking customer who might have had ulterior motives'. You're a worker here. Surely your manager had told you how to spot potentially troublesome people."

The counter girl mumbled something under her breath that sounded oddly like "you mean like you?" before turning back to the both of them.

"Yeah, there were a couple guys in here that didn't look right when you two were here," she replied. "They wandered in, paid for grab-and-go items, and then bolted. Why?"

"Surely you have their names and other info from your transaction records," Sakura said. "Can we have them?"

The girl glared at Sakura from over her shoulder as she turned to walk back further behind the counter and into the kitchen area.

"I'm not authorized to give out that kind of information," she informed them, as if explaining the concept to an idiot. "Maybe I'd help if there was some kind of incentive."

Sakura rubbed her hand on her forehead and groaned.

"Here's your incentive," she said. "Tell us or we'll get the manager involved."

Naruto smiled to himself as her saw the flash of fear go across the rude girl's face. She quickly got out a box from under the counter and pulled off the lid. She pulled a small stack of papers from on top of the larger stack in the box.

"That's the info from the only people that were in here this morning," she replied nonchalantly. "Take it and go."

Sakura grabbed the papers out of the girl's hands and placed them into her pack.

"Naruto, let's head back to the records room and read these."

The girl leaned back onto the counter and rested her chin on her hand while her fingers tapped impatiently on the counter.

"Ninjas," she scoffed.

. . .

Sakura stretched her arms up and yawned as she sat on the table near the window on the far side of the research room. Naruto took the chair out from under the table and sat himself down in front of her, leaning back comfortably and waiting for Sakura to get situated. She finished yawning and then sighed as her arms fell back down to her lap.

"Let's read these transaction reports," she said as she swung her legs in front of her in boredom.

Naruto took the report under the first and began to read.

_Customer report: coming in at approx. 10:30 AM. Keep a close watch? Yes. Customer dressed in loose blue sweater, possible shoplifter. Purchased three bags of homemade pretzels with cash, then left._

"I got nothing," Naruto said as he put the report back in the pile.

"This one's no good either," Sakura told him as she placed her own report on top of Naruto's.

"Hold up," Sakura said suddenly, reaching for a report wedged underneath three others. "I saw the term 'pickpocket' on this one."

Naruto stood up from his chair and moved over to Sakura's side and sat down on the table next to her, reading over her shoulder.

_Customer report: coming in at approx. 10:50 AM. Keep a close watch? Yes. Customer dressed in loose black hooded cloak and chose to sit directly behind only two other patrons in café area. Waitress could not see the face even when taking the order, possible pickpocket. May have taken an object out of safe male patron's pack, but no reaction to prove it. Gave benefit of the doubt as customer did not appear to cause further problems. Paid in cash and left shortly before other customers in café._

"Why didn't the person who wrote this report tell me that the guy was taking something out of my pack?" Naruto yelled.

"Don't yell!" Sakura scolded. "Maybe they weren't sure about what they were seeing. In any case, the reporter gave him the benefit of the doubt, so he or she is most likely long gone by now."

Naruto sighed and looked down at his lap.

"So we got nowhere," Naruto said.

"Not exactly," Sakura said optimistically. "We can put out a lookout for this guy now. We have a description."

"Yeah. 'Look out for people wearing black hooded cloaks!' Sakura, that describes nearly every single traveler in the Land of Fire!" Naruto said.

Sakura patted Naruto's hand sympathetically.

"It might not be much to go on, but it's better than nothing." She hopped off the table and began walking back out to the Hokage's office. "I'll get the patrol out. Why don't you go back home and rest? I'll see you bright and early tomorrow morning to work on the compound, ok?" She smiled and waved.

Naruto waved back and hopped off the table to go back home. What else could he do?

. . .

The cloaked traveler adjusted the band around his waist holding the cloak closed and sat down on a wooden bench just outside of a small civilian town in the Land of Fire. He made sure that despite the large number of people around waiting for other travelers to return home, no one would be able to see under his hood.

It was a rather uneventful morning, he told himself. Running out to Konoha on some errands for his master was never very fun, but this time had a slight perk. After a morning of shopping around in the marketplace, he stopped by a small and quaint looking coffee shop for something sweet to eat before heading back home. The waitress who had greeted him as he sat down at a table behind two ninja seemed not to trust him, but if she didn't, she made no effort to tell him so.

The two ninja seemed to be discussing some sort of chakra affliction that was affecting the young teenager sitting on a tall bar stool in front of him. He'd done his best to ignore the conversation until one particular name popped up. _**Sasuke Uchiha.**_

At the mention of the name, the traveler took more interest in the conversation. When he was sure that neither ninja was aware of his presence, he covertly slipped his hand into the unbuttoned pack of the boy. Slowly, so as not to arouse any suspicion, he drew his hand out of the pack and slipped the object into one of the inside pockets of his cloak. The object felt like paper; old and yet somehow still smooth.

The traveler stood back up and headed off back home once more. He reached back into the inside pocket and pulled out the piece of paper he'd stolen. He had taken it hoping that the object would help him uncover why the two were talking about the Uchiha. It was hard to get a positive I.D. on the two ninja, as his hood blocked out most of his vision.

His eyes widened in both shock and a sort of dull surprise. In his hand was the Uchiha clan's Master Deed List. His lips turned up into a grin. The only reason someone would need to take the Master Deed List of any clan was if they were doing remodeling on the property, and it had to be recorded. Someone was rebuilding the Uchiha district. Wouldn't his master love to hear that?

He ran back home as fast as he could. Reaching the secret doorway to the underground lair, the traveler's hood slipped off as he walked through the corridors leading to his master's chambers. The door handle creaked as he slowly pushed the large and heavy door open.

"Kabuto," Orochimaru's cold, hoarse voice whispered as he softly made his way over to the bed holding the weakened Sannin. "Have you returned with the herbs needed for the medicine to ward off the pain in my arms?"

Kabuto nodded as he pushed his glasses up higher onto his nose.

"All of that and more," he replied as he handed to paper over to Lord Orochimaru.

"This," he hissed. "The Uchiha Master Deed List? This is a document that should be closely guarded in the Konoha records room, should it not?"

"I found it in the pack of a Konoha ninja as I was preparing to return back to you, my Lord," Kabuto said. "It is proof that someone in Konoha is trying to repair the Uchiha district."

"The only reason someone might be repairing that district was if they were planning a raid to get Sasuke back into their village and were going to use the Uchiha district as bait to get him to stay," Orochimaru mused. "The time will soon come when we'll have to prepare for an ambush. Go secure the lab, then give the Deed List to Sasuke, it is rightly his, after all."

Kabuto bowed and ran to the lab. As he chained it shut and locked the lock holding it shut on the cold metal door, he grew suspicious of who he might have taken the Deed List from. There was only one group of ninja in Konoha that was still dedicated to the return of Sasuke Uchiha, and that was Team 7.

Things just got a lot more interesting, he thought to himself as he made his way to Sasuke's chamber.


	10. Don't Send In The Clones

**I have the day off today, so I am giving you all an update!**

**The week of August 15th, I will be on vacation. I am bringing my laptop with me to check my school e-mails, but I will not be updating anything during that period.**

**Because of that, I am updating today, plus possibly adding a new one-shot if I can get it finished and ready in time, but I'm not promising anything. **

**Read, Review, and Enjoy!**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto, Masashi Kishimoto does. He's better at coming up with a long and epic story than I am anyway.**

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><p>Naruto sniffled in his sleep as he snuggled deeper into his blanket. He stretched his arms out and yawned, eyes still closed. He coughed lightly and turned from his back to his right side and hugged his pillow closer to his body. Daylight flooded into the room from in between the horizontal blinds and streaked the side of his face with stripes of sunlight.<p>

Naruto's nose twitched. It was a very lazy morning, and Naruto had refused to wake up. He clamped his eyes together even tighter, trying to avoid waking up. It was useless. He was already fully conscious, and no amount of stubbornness would fix that.

He sighed and finally opened his eyes. He blinked the flecks of sleep from his eyes and curled up into the fetal position. He felt so tired and weak and couldn't understand why. He had never before felt so completely drained, not even when he'd managed to injure himself. Naruto lifted his head up slightly and watched his clock radio flip through the minutes until the alarm turned on.

As the little radio began to play some trashy rap song at a soft volume, Naruto felt his stomach start to churn. Not the gentle grumbles of hunger, but the uncomfortable groans of sickness. Naruto hoisted himself out of bed as gently as he could and made his way over to his bathroom. Once inside, he collapsed to his knees and heaved for a few minutes, trying to make the feeling in his gut go away. Naruto retched as he heard someone push the bathroom door open wider. He shuddered as he felt the bile rush up past his throat and purged into his toilet's white porcelain bowl.

"I told you having three chakras mixing around in your system was bad for you."

Naruto looked up to his bathroom door and found Sakura staring at him from the doorway as he rested on the bathroom floor.

"Sakura? How… why are you-"

"Let's see," she said grumpily. "I waited by the Uchiha Compound Gate for an hour and a half for you to show up. When you didn't I figured that I'd just come here and drag your lazy ass there myself."

Naruto averted his eyes from her steady gaze guiltily. He knew he'd forgotten something…

"Anyway, it's a good thing I showed up here. You look sick as a dog."

Sakura kneeled down to him, gently grabbed his arm, and pulled him back up to his feet. She draped his arm over her shoulder and helped him over to his kitchen table, and he sat himself down in his chair. He was already beginning to feel better, but the strange movement in his stomach wouldn't stop.

"You got sick as a side effect of reading the chakra," she explained. "I told you there would be consequences. Be thankful that it was just throwing up this time. It could've been much worse."

Naruto rested his elbows on his table and crossed his arms on top.

"Yeah, I know. Well, now that I'm up, I might as well get ready to go."

Sakura's face softened from anger to concern. She grabbed the pack she'd thrown onto his floor and pushed the door out of his apartment open.

"You aren't going anywhere just yet," she said. "I'll be right back in a minute. Don't go anywhere."

Naruto nodded silently and rested his head against his table. He briefly considered getting a short nap in, but he wasn't sure how Sakura would react to seeing him sleeping once she got back. She did seem to have some sympathy for him since he was sick earlier this morning. He doubted her patience would last much longer if he continued to milk his sickness this morning for her pity.

Sakura returned, as promised, just a few minutes later holding a small bottle in her hand.

"Oh, good God," Naruto exclaimed, backing away from the table. "You didn't get me any medicine, did you?"

Sakura's eyes narrowed in anger.

"What's wrong with my medicine?" she growled.

"N-nothing," Naruto stuttered. As if he would ever be stupid enough to tell her to her face that even though her medicine worked wonders, it was impossible to swallow due to its horrific taste.

"Whatever," she sighed. "This isn't medicine. It's ginger ale."

She grabbed a glass from one of Naruto's open cabinets and poured the bubbly liquid into it. Naruto lifted the glass to his lips and smiled when the bubbles popped and tickled his nose. Once the glass was empty, Naruto stood up and felt completely better.

"You go on ahead," he said cheerfully. "I'll get dressed and meet you there."

Sakura could only smile and nod. If Naruto was already feeling the effects of the chakra, who knows what would happen to him as time went on? She left and walked down the deserted road that no one used anymore, the road that led to the Uchiha district. It was silent, which bothered her. Some white noise in the background would've helped distract her from the thoughts of what might happen to her best friend. He was much too optimistic to consider the dangers that could befall him.

. . .

Sakura leaned against the outside wall of the house she was painting and wiped her sweaty forehead with a handkerchief. She took a quick look down to the paint tray she'd been using for the past few hours. It was coated in sticky, off-white paint, and was nearly empty. How could that be? She still had one more coat to paint onto the house! She sighed and walked back out onto the street.

"Hey Naruto!" she yelled. "Got any more paint?"

His head popped out from over the ledge of the roof and he tossed a paint can down to her. How long had he been up there?

"Thanks!"

She set the paint can down next to the tray and reached down for the paint can opener, only to find it missing.

"I need the paint can opener too, please!"

Naruto walked out from behind a wooden fence across the street and checked it at her.

"Thank…wait. Why are you over there? You were on the roof earlier," she called.

"No," Naruto said slowly. "I think you're losing it, Sakura-chan. I've been behind the fence fixing the gate hinges since we got here."

"You were not!" she protested. "You were UP THERE!" she yelled, pointing up to the roof.

"I was not,"

Sakura turned around to hear the voice behind her only to see Naruto laying down some tiles in the house she was painting.

"You're not in there," she said. "You were over there," she pointed across the street. "And up there!" she pointed to the roof.

"I've been in here since we first got here!" he told her.

"No, you… wait a second." She stomped angrily out into the middle of the road and looked all around her.

"On the count of three," she yelled, "everyone here will show themselves, got it?"

"One. Two. Three!"

Sakura's eyes widened in shock when she saw several dozen Naruto clones pop up from just about everywhere in the compound.

"Wait," one of them said. "Were we supposed to come out ON three or on the beat AFTER three?"

"I don't think it matters now," another one answered. "We're all out here now."

"Ok," Sakura said. "Now all of you just…I don't know…poof away or whatever it is clones do so I can talk to the real Naruto."

"I AM the real Naruto!" one of the clones said. "Well, I'm part of the real Naruto, anyway."

"I mean it!" Sakura yelled.

Sakura stood out in the middle of the street tapping her foot in impatience as she watched all of the clones poof away in clouds of smoke. The real Naruto jumped off the roof of the house Sakura was painting.

"Naruto," she said, grabbing onto his shoulders and shaking him. "You can't use Shadow Clones to repair the district anymore. It isn't safe!"

"Of course it's safe," he told her. "I haven't hurt myself or fallen off of anything yet."

"That isn't what I meant!" she said. "A Shadow Clone is just as susceptible to reading the chakra as you yourself are. It'd be worse, actually, because a Shadow Clone would get overwhelmed doing it, and we don't know what would happen to you if it did."

"I'm careful not to let my clones get near that chakra if they can feel any around," Naruto mumbled.

"Please Naruto, for your own safety from now on do NOT use Shadow Clones."

"I won't," he said sheepishly.

"I want you to promise," Sakura said.

"I promise that I will no longer use Shadow Clones to repair the Uchiha District," Naruto swore. "Not like it matters much anyway. We're very close to being finished."

"That's all I'm asking," Sakura said, walking back to her paint can.

. . .

Kabuto pushed his glasses up further onto the bridge of his nose and began the walk over to Sasuke's room. No doubt he was sleeping again. Kabuto spent most of his time in the lab and never watched Orochimaru train the boy. He sometimes wondered what Orochimaru was teaching him that made him so tired every day.

Sasuke did not like being woken up. Not even if it was for a request made by Orochimaru. Kabuto shook his head. For someone so seemingly precious to his master, Sasuke was lacking in proper manners. It was almost as if the Uchiha didn't have a respectful bone in his body. How many times had Kabuto told him to be more polite to Orochimaru-sama? He never listened, so Kabuto had given up counting.

The last time someone opened up Sasuke's chamber while he was sleeping never came back, and when Kabuto went to investigate, he found the poor henchman pinned to the wall across from the door by a kunai through his head. Hearing the news only made Orochimaru smile to himself. He praised Sasuke for becoming even more violent as time went by. Kabuto wasn't quite as pleased as he thought he should've been. Of course, it might have been because Kabuto was ordered to clean up the bloody mess alone. Sasuke was never ordered to clean up after himself or to appreciate other people's hard work, because the next week when a different henchman was sent to fetch Sasuke, the same thing happened again.

Kabuto leaned his ear against the door of Sasuke's chamber and listened for sounds of Sasuke being awake. He heard some slight rustling noises from inside and deemed it safe enough to enter.

"Sasuke," Kabuto said as the door opened.

Sasuke scrambled while the door was still opening and shoved something away under the pillow on his bed.

"What is it now?" he asked warily.

"Lord Orochimaru wished for me to deliver this to you," Kabuto replied, holding out the Master Deed List.

Sasuke reached out and flattened the document carefully. He sat silently for a few minutes, his eyes darting back and forth over the lines written upon it before setting the document down onto his bedside table.

"What's the meaning of this?" Sasuke gestured to the document.

"The Master Deed List for any clan is only taken out of the archives when someone is doing major renovations to the clan's land," Kabuto reminded him. "Perhaps you'd like to go back and see who loves you enough to fix up your land?"

"Are you suggesting that Orochimaru gave me the Master Deed List to test me?"

"I'm not suggesting anything," Kabuto replied coolly. "I am merely asking you a harmless question."

"Asking a harmless question, or taunting me?" Sasuke asked.

"If that is the way you choose to interpret it, then I suppose there is nothing I could do to make you see otherwise. Goodbye, Sasuke." Kabuto backed slowly out of the room.

As the door closed, Kabuto saw Sasuke quickly reach back under his pillow for whatever he'd stashed under it before Kabuto came in. Sasuke never let anyone into his room any further past a few steps, and he'd seriously injured the last person that tried to touch anything. Sasuke took care of everything himself, from freshening up his bed sheets to doing his laundry to just cleaning up the room in general. Most everyone in the hideout was smart enough to keep away from going into Sasuke's chamber.

Kabuto walked back down the hall to Orochimaru wondering what the boy was trying to hide.


	11. Nori Wrapped Senbei and Green Tea Please

**I am back from my vacation, and have a new chapter up here for you all!**

**College officially starts on Sept. 7, so my workload might make updates less regular.**

**New works are being planned out, and shall be posted once they are planned out and finished.**

**Read, review, and enjoy!**

**Disclaimer: Who remembers back when people put up disclaimers for anything other than tradition or nostalgia value? Anyhoo, dreamysaturn doesn't own Naruto.**

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><p>The wood made ominous creaking noises as Naruto walked across the room. He rested his hand on the doorframe of the little senbei shop. Naruto had heard that once upon a time, the Uchihas ran a shop in their district that sold the best senbei in the village. Naruto never got the opportunity to try any because by the time he was deemed old enough to go around without adult supervision by the village, the Uchiha massacre had already taken place. The recipe for the senbei was a closely guarded secret by the clan, and now it was lost forever because it was passed down through word of mouth and had never once been written down. A few days after the slaughter, Naruto had heard two middle aged women on the market street lamenting the loss of the shop and its delicious rice crackers. Not once did he hear them say anything about how awful it was that a significant part of the population had been brutally murdered. When he was younger, that had confused him. Now, it only made him angry.<p>

The little wooden sign on a pole over the door swung in the wind, still hanging by small chain links. The metal clinked together as the sign moved and disrupted the silence in the area. Naruto rested his back against an interior wall and slid down to sit on the floor. It was dusty and had many splinters as the old wood wore down. Nails in the floorboards had gone missing over the years. Naruto closed his eyes and made a mental list of everything he'd need for this place: new nails, more wood, fresh paint, new glass…

Naruto heard the hesitant footsteps of Sakura coming in a few minutes later. Naruto was under the impression that she had gone home.

"What're you still doing here, Sakura?"

"Same thing you are," she said. "Checking stuff out for tomorrow."

Naruto opened his eyes, put his hands on his knees, and lifted himself up off the ground with a short and quiet grunt of effort.

"Part of me is reluctant to fix up this shop," he mumbled. "The senbei recipe is gone. What good will an empty senbei shop do for anyone?"

"What makes you think Sasuke doesn't know the recipe?" Sakura asked. "I was under the impression that the recipe was off limits to non-Uchihas. Sasuke meets the recipe-sharing requirements."

"Sasuke wouldn't know how to make food that wasn't utterly bland and tasteless. He wouldn't know flavor if it bit him in the ass."

"It doesn't have to be restored the way it was meant to," Sakura said. "We can rebuild the shop and get rid of the sign out front. It'll be just a generic shop."

"Do you think Sasuke would notice that?"

"Unfortunately, he would," Sakura shrugged. "I used to come here all the time with my mom to buy packets of their green tea. Sasuke spent a lot of time here with the shop owners."

Naruto sighed and walked to the back of the room to a small table standing on its last legs. He leaned onto it, placing his hands solidly on top of its round surface. A hazy and sleepy feeling crossed through his brain. His elbows buckled a bit, trying to hold him up steady. He knew this feeling.

"Sakura," Naruto whispered slowly. "Sakura, get me a chair…"

Sakura turned and her eyes widened as Naruto wobbled slowly back and forth. She didn't have time to get a chair; he had already lost his grip on the table and was falling backwards.

"Or catch me," he mumbled slowly as he fell into her outstretched arms. "That works too."

"When you wake up from this dream," she said, placing him gently on the floor, "tell me all about it."

"You betcha," he said as his eyes closed.

. . .

_Sasuke ran down the road as quickly as possible, determined not to be late. He stopped quickly and checked his reflection in a window. He frowned as he tried to smooth the back of his hair down. His mother had gotten it to lay flat after getting a comb through it, but it was sticking up again. He supposed he could've just brought Mother's comb with him, but the combing had hurt. Mother said it was because his hair was thick and tangled. He sighed and continued walking along at a slower pace. All the other boys teased him behind his back that his hair looked like a duck's butt. They were polite to his face but mean when they thought he couldn't hear them. But he could hear them, and the teasing made him feel worthless, though he'd never admit it to anyone. The girls were nice to him. He could make friends with them, if girls weren't so yucky and full of cooties. Cooties were contagious- Itachi said so._

_His pack hit his legs with every step he took, and it was starting to bother him. There wasn't anything too heavy or important in it, just his schoolbook and some notebooks and pencils. Sasuke kept it all organized and neat. Itachi graduated from the Academy early, and Sasuke was determined not to fall behind him. He was as much an Uchiha as Itachi was, right?_

_Sasuke stopped and switched his pack strap from his left shoulder to the right then sniffed at the delicious, warm scent in the air. His head turned to the right and remembered he was standing in front of one of his favorite places. He opened the door to Uchiha Senbei and Bakery and smiled at the middle aged woman sweeping in the back._

"_Good morning, Uruchi-san!" he said cheerfully while waving to the sweeping woman._

"_Little Sasuke!" she smiled. "Here to say hello before school? You want some rice crackers for your bento?"_

"_Yes," he chirped. "Can I help you out here after I get back this afternoon again?"_

"_If it's alright with your mother, it's alright with me," she said. "Look at you, already school age! I remember your brother when he first started school. Very talented, he was. He graduated shortly after entering!"_

"_Uruchi," said her husband as he walked out of the kitchen. "Don't go on praising his brother too much. You'll discourage the poor boy."_

"_Good morning to you too, Teyaki-san," Sasuke smiled._

"_Go to school and become a good shinobi. You'll do fine on your own." He laughed as he handed a small package of rice crackers wrapped in a cloth to Sasuke. "Your brother was certainly talented for his age, but you must learn to do things your way. You and Itachi are different."_

"_I will!" Sasuke said excitedly as he ran out the door to school once more._

"_Ah, to be young and hopeful!" sighed Uruchi as she continued sweeping._

"_He's such a rambunctious little tyke," Teyaki said as he smiled and headed back to the kitchen._

. . .

"Naruto!" Sakura yelled nervously as his eyes fluttered open. He lifted his head off her lap and blinked a few times to clear his vision. He was still on the floor of the old shop. He leaned his head over to hear more clearly. There was some sort of weird music playing in the background.

"What are we listening to?" Naruto asked as he tried to sit up.

"Eric Whitacre," Sakura said as she got up to turn the little portable radio she'd brought along off. "Nox Aurumque."

"Turn it off, I can't hear myself think."

"I thought it might make things calmer for you as you slept." She said, returning to his side.

"It kind of sounded like you were mourning my death or something," Naruto muttered as he stood up on shaky legs.

"Shut up. It sounded like a good idea at the time," Sakura sighed as she sat him down in a chair and kneeled down to face him.

"Sasuke came here," Naruto muttered as he stared at his outstretched hands.

"Yeah," Sakura said slowly. "I said that, didn't I? Did you hurt your head or something?"

"No, he came on his way to school one day. He came in here and talked with the owners."

"About what?" Sakura said, wiping his face with a cool cloth.

"About becoming a good shinobi in his own right and not just following Itachi."

"Itachi is a sore spot with him, as I'm sure you know," Sakura replied.

"Was being compared to Itachi really that much of a pain to him?"

"He never talked to me about it," Sakura shrugged. "That day we took the bell test, he whispered something to himself about how Itachi made him cry. I don't know what goes through his head when he thinks of Itachi. It's like he goes into his own little world that only exists in his head. He gets really weird where Itachi is concerned."

"I hope he's okay," Naruto said, leaning his head into his hands.

. . .

Sasuke watched as Kabuto exited the room and let out a sigh of relief. The threat of being caught got stronger each day. There was only so much telling off the henchman and maids could take before getting curious. He'd caught a few trying to sneak in his room after he told them all to stay out, trying to sneak around looking for something. Sasuke's room didn't have much furniture, Just a bed and bedside table. It was getting hard to hide his secret.

And now Kabuto was probably onto him. Running off to tell his precious Lord Orochimaru that Sasuke was "hiding" something, most likely. Kabuto was more than capable of stooping that low. He'd done it before. The only reason He was still here was because Orochimaru and Kabuto had him under their thumbs. Sasuke needed power, and came for that reason. He stayed because Orochimaru was the only one capable of giving Sasuke something else he desperately wanted but would refuse to share. So long as Kabuto taunted Sasuke with that _thing_ he wanted inside the lab, Sasuke was trapped here.

Sasuke shook his head and stood up from his bed. His head turned to the door of his bathroom. _A shower,_ he thought. _I'll take a quick shower and try to get over it._

Sasuke untied the rope around his waist and let his belt and wrapping fall to the floor. He kicked his zori sandals off and let them fly off to a corner of the room. He tugged his shirt out from his pants and threw it to the side and finally yanked down his pants and reached for a towel. Keeping the towel securely around his waist, he walked over to his bathroom and stepped into his mildew shower. As he stood under the low pressure stream of lukewarm water, he tried to keep his mind blank. No matter how hard he tried to keep his brain a blank white slate, thoughts of Kabuto revealing his secret kept creeping back in. The water got colder the longer Sasuke stood there, almost freezing his scalp as the droplets of water soaked his thick and unruly hair. Sasuke rubbed the water out of his eyes and turned the shower knobs off. He stepped out of the shower and onto the concrete floor of his small bathroom and looked into his sink mirror. He still looked the same as he always did. Nothing ever changed.

Sasuke walked back into his room and toweled his hair dry before putting his night clothes on. He reached under his pillow for his secret.

His hands searched the sheet underneath the pillow and finally found what he was looking for. He grasped it and pulled it slowly out from under the pillow. He lit a few more candles to be sure he had enough light. The picture frame in his hands somehow felt heavier than usual. He stared down at the photograph, gripping the frame so hard that he was sure eventually, the frame would bend out of shape. The photo of Naruto and Sakura and Kakashi he'd managed to sneak by Orochimaru still looked brand new. Sasuke had taken it after a mission, and kept it framed by his bedside. It was the only thing of his former life he brought with him to this godforsaken place.

Sasuke turned the frame around and undid the latch holding the picture in. A small scrap of paper fell out from behind the picture. Sasuke picked it up and held his secret up to the candlelight.

Sasuke was rarely allowed out of Orochimaru's hideout, but when he was he spent hours wandering around the small village just a few minute's walk from the lair's exit. Sasuke kept to himself mostly, but one particular villager knew of Sasuke's imprisonment and reached out to him. He read the words on the paper that man had written to him a few months ago.

_I know he keeps you there against your will. Anytime you can, come find me and I'll let you out of here. Just say the word. I'm here to help you._

_Tomio_

Sasuke put the scrap of paper from the helpful old rickshaw puller back into the picture frame and stowed it back under his pillow as he laid his head against it before sleeping. Someday, Sasuke would take Tomio up on his offer. That day was not today.


	12. Hospitals and Gloopy Purple Medicine

**New chapter!**

**Also: To the person who left a review under the name "chair" : I would have loved to try to contact you, however, this site doesn't like posting e-mail or other website names on it, so I couldn't see it. If you want to get back to me, you'll either have to send a signed review from a site account or pm me. If you can do that, I would certainly love to send you a message. :)**

**As always, read, review, and enjoy!**

**Disclaimer: I don't own, you don't own. Let's bond over our mutual non-owning, shall we?**

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><p>Sakura looked at Naruto sitting in front of her and reached out to touch his face.<p>

"How are you feeling?" she asked.

"You want the real answer or a bullshit 'fine, let's get back to work' answer?" Naruto mumbled as he rubbed his head.

Sakura gave him "The Look", and reached into her pack for medicine bottles, just in case.

"The real one, please."

Naruto stood, wobbled, and then sat back down.

"Urgh," he grunted. "I feel woozy. And that's the truth."

Sakura shook her head sadly and fumbled around for more medicine bottles. Just her luck, she hadn't packed anything to get rid of disorientation and dizziness. She did have one unopened bottle of nausea solution. Naruto never said he felt sick to his stomach, but a little preemptive dose couldn't hurt.

Naruto's eyes widened as he watched Sakura twist the cap on the medicine bottle and hunt around the shop for a spare cup.

"What're you doing?" he asked.

"Preemptive healing," she said cheerfully as she opened and closed the worn old cabinets. "Then to the hospital. Does that sound good? Wanna go to the hospital?"

"I think I'm fine though, really," his voice strained as he watched Sakura pour a liberal dose of the thick and viscous purple sludge into an old and cracked pink clay mug.

"If you don't feel pukey now, you certainly will later. This'll take care of it before it even starts," she said, putting the cap back on the bottle.

"God, this stuff looks bad," he said under his breath as he tilted the cup's contents to his face.

"You want some water to wash it down with?"

"Yes please. I left a canteen full of it over back on the roof," Naruto said.

Sakura smiled and told him she'd be back in a minute or two before turning to leave. Once she was gone, Naruto took one look at the purple goop in his cup, grimaced and plugged his nose, and took one small gulp. It tasted as bad as it looked. Naruto wasn't sure if this stuff was supposed to get rid of nausea or cause it. Naruto heard Sakura's shoe heels scrape on the roof of the other building and panicked. He looked around anxiously for a potted plant or some other place to discard the remaining medicine in the cup. He settled for the old maintenance sink in the broom closet. He made it back to his seat just a few seconds before Sakura walked back into the door grinning and holding up his canteen.

"And it wasn't so bad, was it?" she asked, seeing Naruto's empty cup.

"Of course not," Naruto lied. "I even feel all better now. We can skip the hospital entirely. We can just go home and take a nap and not go to the hospital-,"

"We're going," she deadpanned.

Naruto rolled his eyes and stood up. It was no use arguing with Sakura once she got an idea into her head. Naruto felt no desire to go to the hospital, nor did he feel any reason. He'd go for just a short while, just to make Sakura happy.

He stood slowly at first, trying to keep himself from falling over. It was worse this time. The dizziness and blurriness of his eyes did not dissipate instantly like it used to when he watched the memories. Instead of being ready to go right away, he had to steady himself on the table to keep from falling over and had to give himself a few minutes before he was sure he could even see anything clearly. His eyes wavered between perfectly fine and terribly out of focus. He took one large deep breath and started to feel better, or if not better, at least well enough to walk unaided.

Sakura closed the door behind them as they walked silently down the dirt path back through the gate. Sakura swept a sideways glance at Naruto. She'd never tell him so, but she was far more concerned for him than she let on. He was still the same old goofy friend she'd always known, but she didn't know how long that'd last. He got more serious and introspective as time went by. She didn't think that fixing the district or watching Sasuke's old memories would change her best friend. Of course, watching the kinds of things Naruto had described would change anyone, but anyone else would still do things in their lives that would retain who they were. Naruto's whole life nowadays revolved around Sasuke.

The hospital was fairly empty. The nursing staff's numbers were usually reduced during the weekday, but today it seemed as if they all decided to play hooky. Sakura nodded respectfully to the three older nurses she did see, then grabbed Naruto's arm and dragged him over to the main desk to get him signed up for a checkup.

"Sakura?" the plump, middle-aged woman asked. "So glad to see you! We're a little short handed…obviously."

Sakura grinned and took the sign-in pen from the woman's outstretched hand.

"I know. Unfortunately, I'm not here to help out today. Naruto Uzumaki needs a checkup."

"I don't know if you'll get one today," the woman said. "We have one doctor on staff today and we need him for emergencies."

"Where did everyone go?" Sakura asked as she handed the woman back her pen and clipboard.

"There's some sort of convention going on in Iwa. The dumbass they hired in shift work gave them all the week off for it. Idiot…" the woman mumbled.

"How about I take over the emergency wing for a bit so the doctor can check out Naruto?"

"I don't know…" the woman hesitated.

"Come on," Sakura cajoled. "Free work? You KNOW I'm never going to offer it again…"

The woman's eyes narrowed as she considered Sakura's offer. She moved her gaze over to Naruto bracing himself against the counter and sighed.

"I guess I can squeeze him in. Poor kid looks like he needs it," she said, nodding her head in Naruto's direction.

. . .

The doctor smiled at Naruto sitting on the examination table. Naruto's fingers poked holes in the cheap paper covering it tediously. The doctor took off his latex gloves and threw them into the trash next to his office door.

"How's that dizziness medicine I gave you working out?" He asked.

Naruto coughed into his fist and looked back up at the doctor.

"I feel much better," he told the doctor honestly.

The doctor's medicine didn't taste anything like Sakura's. Instead of thick purple goo, it was a slightly pinkish powder that had been dissolved in a glass of water. It had tasted kind of like strawberries.

"My medicine is flavored in order to get people to finish it," the doctor said, placing a small white paper bag on a small weighed scale. "Unfortunately, it reduces the medicine's effectiveness. This paper bag has one more dose of medicine in it that you'll have to take in about two hours. Dissolve it in one full glass of water and drink the whole thing."

"Yes sir," Naruto said, taking the bag from the doctor and waving as he walked back into the waiting room for Sakura.

"How was your checkup, sweetie?" the woman asked as Naruto walked by.

"I feel better already!"

"Great!" she smiled. "I just need you to fill out some forms. Medical records, you know."

Naruto took the papers and pen handed to him and sat down in a cushy armchair.

"No problem."

Naruto clicked the pen and began filling out the form. He looked over the info needed: Name, Birth date, Age, Gender, etc. It was standard information. Reason for visit? What was he supposed to put down there? Dizziness was a good option, but it seemed stupid to write it down. What teenage boy would go to the doctor for dizziness?

Naruto brushed the thought off and wrote it down. It wasn't like anyone other than hospital staff was ever going to read it. Naruto filled out more of the form and handed it back to the woman. She smiled at him again and pushed a small box toward him.

"One of the nurses made cookies since there aren't many people here today. Take one, dear."

Naruto reached into the small box and pulled out a chocolate cookie. It was soft in the middle and crispy on the outside edges, just like he liked them. He watched the emergency wing hallway closely from the armchair for any sign of Sakura. It wouldn't take long for her to return. Naruto briefly wondered why he was staying behind for her. He knew his way home from here. Naruto stayed put out of fear that Sakura would get angry that he went home alone. She'd been very overprotective lately.

Eventually Naruto got sick of sitting still in one place and decided to look for her himself. He wandered down various empty hallways looking for nurses to ask directions from, but due to the shortage of staff, he found it impossible to get to one. He decided that he could ask the patients, so long as they didn't mind. Those poor bedridden patients were probably thirsting for human contact anyhow.

The first patient couldn't hear him because he was deaf and was waiting on the doctor to give him a checkup. Naruto's attempts to act out what he wanted had failed miserably. The guy clearly also hadn't figured out how to read lips, either. Naruto waved goodbye before moving on.

The elderly woman in a room in the next hallway over mistook Naruto for the doctor and decided to interrupt his friendly requests with her various complaints about her chronic back pain. Naruto stood there for ten minutes waiting for her to cease, but she kept rambling on and on, and at one point she told Naruto it was his fault that she wasn't comfortable. Naruto politely said his farewells and backed out of the room.

It was still better than the room of an old man that Naruto had wandered into on the opposite side of the building. He had mistaken Naruto for a nurse and asked him for a sponge bath. Naruto quickly stuttered out an explanation that he was most certainly NOT a nurse before the man had finally gotten tired and fell asleep. Naruto couldn't understand how Sakura could stand being in here all the time. The patients were nice and kind people, but the ones who yelled and made strange requests freaked him out. He knew he'd never be cut out for the job. He'd always be the kind of impulsive ninja that risked his neck every week on deadly missions. It was in his nature.

Naruto collapsed out of exhaustion on a bench in the emergency wing hallway. He briefly considered taking a short nap there until Sakura finally found him, but his eyes stayed shut only for a few minutes when he felt a sharp pain on his shoulder and registered it as someone poking him.

"I'm done," Sakura told him when he opened his eyes. She pulled off her gloves and untied the medical tool apron around her waist and draped it over her forearm. Naruto and Sakura walked down the hall back to the waiting room and Sakura thanked the woman there for fitting Naruto in and returned the supplies and apron.

"She's a nice lady," Naruto commented as they left the hospital. "We ate cookies and she called me sweetie."

"Yes, she's very maternal, isn't she?" Sakura replied. "She's good with the little kids. Makes them feel less afraid of the doctor. She's been working there a long time."

Naruto and Sakura walked through the streets making small talk until they got to Naruto's apartment building.

"Can I come up with you?" Sakura asked. "I found something I think you'll like to see."

Naruto looked at her curiously before unlocking his front door, seeing her smile softly, not betraying anything. She opened her pack and pulled out a small stack of stapled papers.

"I made copies of Sasuke's medical records!" She said excitedly. "If we read them quickly, no one will even know I made them. I wanted to ask you something, too."

Naruto shrugged and let her continue.

"I noticed before we left that the maintenance sink in the broom closet at the old senbei shop was clogged. Do you know how that might've happened? I'm not very good at unclogging old blockages, you know."

Naruto stared at her and gulped.

"…No," he lied. "I had no idea the sink was clogged. Now, about those records…"


	13. Sasuke's Sexy Disguise

**Hello readers!**

**I know it's been a while since I've updated everything, and for that I appologize. I'm having some issues with college stuff, and I haven't had much free time.**

**I'll try to keep everything going somewhat regularly from now on, I just need to get into the swing of things better.**

**Thank you for understanding!**

**As always, read, review, and enjoy!**

**Disclaimer: I don't claim. I'm to tired to think of anything fun to say after that.**

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><p>He lifted the blade up to eye level and examined the sharp edge. It was razor thin as always, and that was one thing he was proud of. He could take care of his weapons. He lowered the sword and ran the sharpening stone across it one last time before re-holstering it. He smiled as the metal clinking sound echoed through the room. The happiness he got from his freshly sharpened blade never lasted long, and the small smile adorning his face faded. He pressed his thin lips together as he felt the muscles near his mouth relax.<p>

Sasuke's days were numbered. Three years seemed like a long time back when he was twelve, but now at fifteen, the years had gone by in what felt like little more than months. Endless nights spent training alone had blurred his senses of the passing of time. Days had turned into weeks and weeks had turned into months and months had turned into years before Sasuke realized that if he didn't do something soon, he'd never get out alive.

Time flies when you're being blackmailed. Sasuke realized that shortly after being coerced into joining up with Orochimaru in the first place. No one in their right mind would have been tempted into running off with a psychopath that attacks children without a reason. Sasuke's reason is still locked away somewhere in the laboratory. Sasuke is never allowed inside it and his attempts to get his hands on a key have all been miserable failures. The people that possessed them could not be bribed, could not be threatened, and could not be robbed. It was after these failures that Sasuke felt things here were most hopeless. He would mope around for a few hours and shoot glares at anybody he crossed.

Sometimes late at night when he couldn't sleep, Sasuke stared up through the pitch black darkness at what he imagines must be the ceiling and wonders how Orochimaru got his hands on that thing in the lab in the first place. He would've had to be in Konoha long enough to raid through the Uchiha compound after everyone had been slaughtered. He would have had to be quick and careful, which was always easier said than done, especially since the anbu would have been scouring through the properties looking to see if Itachi could be captured. They shouldn't have bothered. Sasuke could have told them that after their confrontation Itachi had left and never intended to come back. He is, however, sort of understanding of that. No one wants to take advice from an eight year old, after all.

Sasuke tied the rope belt holding his sword holster tighter against his waist. He pushed the door of his room open and watched the torches on the wall as he walked past them. They all looked the same. If Sasuke were so inclined, he would suggest that Orochimaru needed a new interior decorator. He needed a new cleaner, too. Sasuke cursed as he walked through an old cobweb, running his finger through his hair in an attempt to remove all traces of the sticky, stringy mess.

He pushed the door to the outside open quietly to avoid drawing any unwanted attention. Today's outing had to be kept secret. His eyes darted up to the sky and squinted from the harsh light of the mid day sun. His hand shielded his face. This was the part of going outside he hated. Orochimaru kept him underground with only soft firelight for light, and going outside felt like he was being painfully blinded.

Sasuke stepped hesitantly out onto the gravel path leading to the small village nearby. Sasuke sighed and shook his head. It was always risky going outside, especially since he knew Kabuto would report him. Going outside on his own required him to do something he really hated. It was unfortunately necessary that he disguise himself in the village. Sasuke hated doing the jutsu required for protection from being spotted. It wasn't his technique. Thinking about it made him remember his old team. The sharingan remembered every jutsu it saw…including Naruto's stupid sexy technique.

Sasuke looked at his reflection in the water of a nearby puddle as the jutsu lengthened his hair, gave him wider hips, and rounded out his facial features. If he didn't know better, he'd say he looked more like one of his older female cousins from back when he was younger. He sighed out loud once everything was finished. Naruto's technique always did away with the clothes he wore when performed. Sasuke reached around off the path and lifted a medium sized rock up and pulled the small stash of female clothes from under it. He mentally shuddered as he pulled the loose, knee-length skirt over his legs. What would his father say to him if he knew his younger son was wearing a skirt?

He tugged at the loose collar of the pink shirt he'd managed to secretly steal from one of the villagers months ago. He found himself wishing he knew how to sew it to fit better, but the one time he tried he kept pricking his fingers with the needle and ended up quitting out of anger. He dreaded picking the soft pink color. It too reminded him of his former team. Sakura's hair had been the same sickening shade, and while it looked good on her, Sasuke found pink wasn't his color, not even as a woman.

Sasuke found it easier to move around in the small village as a woman. For one thing, the girls in the village ignored him as a girl. When he first walked through it, he wasn't wise enough to use a disguise and couldn't walk two feet without gaining a new admirer. Those first few visits always ended the same way; girls would cling to him, and then get upset when a new one pushed her out of the way. It would finally finish with Sasuke sneaking back to the hideout while other villagers would cat call and urge the pile of girls to fight harder. It disgusted him.

However, as a girl Sasuke found the problem had simply flipped genders. Sasuke would walk around as a girl pretending to be interested in the marketplace shops while eavesdropping on villager's conversations, and a second later he'd be trying to ignore the very unsubtle flirting of the village boys. Sasuke was shocked to find out that he didn't mind. The large number of male admirers that he gained never fought over him, but they did act cocky and possessive. Would the world never give him a break?

Sasuke made his way to the village gate slowly, and then hid behind one of the stone pillars guarding the entrance. He leaned over slightly, peeking past the pillar and into the marketplace. He didn't see anyone out in the open who might recognize him in his disguise. Sasuke sighed with relief and headed into the center of town. He felt a grumble in his stomach. He had forgotten to eat before he left.

Sasuke ran his fingers through his fake long hair and wandered off to the only restaurant in town. Sasuke pushed the door open and walked up to the hostess, who ignored him until he coughed politely to get her attention.

"Just you again?" she asked, taking him to a table in the back.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Sasuke grumped in his high female voice. He was never going to get used to that…

"I mean you should start coming here with a friend or something," she told him as she placed a menu and some utensils down on the table. "Besides, you're pretty. You should have a boyfriend by now."

Sasuke looked at the hostess blankly. Just staring at her face for a few seconds was enough time for Sasuke to confirm that she was being totally sincere.

"You aren't one of those girls that doesn't feel fulfilled as a person unless they're in a relationship, are you?" he asked hesitantly.

Sasuke sat down in his chair, then looked up to the hostess through his long bangs and saw her face turn pink. He wasn't sure if it was from embarrassment or rage.

"I…I mean-,"

"Whatever," he said, turning to his menu and ignoring her.

Sasuke was glad to see that the wait staff that he had today was an elderly woman who didn't fuss over him. She took his order for onigiri and water, smiled, and left. Sasuke sat at his table alone and bored. His mind flashed back to a time back in team seven when they all went out for lunch after a mission. After they had ordered, Naruto loudly complained that he was bored and messed around with the table settings until the food came. Sasuke wasn't sure if Naruto still did that or not. He certainly wasn't going to do that himself, it was childish.

Sasuke looked down at the table after zoning out for a moment only to find that he'd accidentally taken all the chopstick sets on the table and had inadvertently made a chopstick teepee out of them. His eyed widened in shock, and then poked on the top of the structure to bring it down. The sticks fell out of formation and rolled away, clinging loudly against the water glass and glass tabletop. Sasuke looked around anxiously to see if the sound had bothered anyone. He sighed with relief when he saw that no one had noticed.

The bell over the door of the restaurant chimed. Sasuke lifted his head up and broke out into a cold sweat. What was Kabuto doing in here? He'd already finished the errands Orochimaru had sent him off to do.

The hostess sat Kabuto down at the booth to Sasuke's right next to another man. Sasuke didn't recognize him, but he was sure that this man wasn't just some innocent traveler. Sasuke's stomach felt queasy as he got progressively more and more nervous the closer Kabuto had come. It was unlikely that Kabuto would recognize Sasuke in his disguise, but the thought still stuck there at the back of his mind. What if Kabuto looked over to Sasuke and got curious as to why the girl he was looking at looked so familiar? Kabuto and the man began talking, and Sasuke calmed himself slightly so He could listen in.

"You say he ran off?" the mysterious man asked quietly.

"I'm sure of it. When I see him next and ask about it, he's probably going to deny it, but I've looked everywhere and I'm getting suspicious," Kabuto replied.

"Do you have any reason to believe the boy is less than loyal?"

"Nothing definitive," Kabuto told him. "It's nothing more than suspicion. However, it's suspicion that has been earned."

"What has he done?"

"It isn't what he's done," Kabuto whispered. "It's how he behaves. I think he's hiding something."

"And what do you want me to do about it?" the man asked gruffly.

"If Sasuke truly has run off, even temporarily, then his room will be empty, will it not? Check it from top to bottom."

"Do you think I'm an idiot?" The man said seriously. "You think I haven't heard about what that boy does to people that have been in his quarters?"

"He never has to know," Kabuto replied calmly. "Do you see him anywhere here? I doubt he'd find out. Just be careful."

Sasuke took a small sip of water to calm himself down. Kabuto _was_ on to him. They were going to search his room, and if they were as thorough as Kabuto said they should be…

Sasuke leaped up from the table and exited the restaurant before his food arrived. He had to get back as soon as possible and stay in his room for however long it took to get rid of Kabuto and the mysterious stranger. Kabuto's suspicion only proved that he didn't have long before time ran out to safely escape.

_Soon,_ Sasuke thought. _I need to escape soon. I just need more time than I have available to plan first. There has to be a way to stall everything until I'm ready._


	14. What's Up, Sister?

**New chapter!**

**Here's the info, readers. I have lost vision in my right eye. I have been in and out of the hospital for weeks doing tests to figure out what's wrong. I have taken an MRI and it showed that I have inflammation of the optic nerve and my brain. I have more hospital work to be done, plus IV drips and medication. Nothing will be updated until I am better, and for that I am sorry. This chapter is shorter than normal for that reason. It's hard to type because seeing is difficult, but I wanted to move the story on a little more for you all. I hope this is enough for a while.**

**Please forgive any typos. Typing, as you read above, is hard at the moment, and i am still looking for a beta. None of the ones I have contacted have contacted me back. Oh well...**

**Read, Review, and Enjoy!**

**Disclaimer: I don't own. I can't afford to own, especially not now. Damn bills...**

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><p>Naruto's key's jingled in the lock of his apartment door. They hardly ever worked. He'd get his key halfway into the doorknob lock, then they'd get stuck and Naruto would have to slam his body against the door while he tried to force the key in. Naruto gripped the key and pulled it out of the lock. He shoved it back in as hard as he could and finally managed to open his door. He looked to his key as he sat down to remove his shoes. It was curved and bent from the force. He sighed and made a mental note to get it replaced. This always happened a few months after the last keys would break.<p>

Sakura looked around the small apartment with a look of slight disgust on her face. Her nose wrinkled and her eyes narrowed.

"You need to clean up in here," she sniffed.

Naruto shrugged. He lived alone; he never felt the need to clean up. It didn't bother him any that his place was a total pigsty. He looked at the various junk littering his floor: old bowls, dirty laundry, scrolls that had not been re-rolled, and something in the corner made of paper that vaguely resembled a paper sculptured crocodile. Naruto didn't want to touch it. Sai had given it to him and he wasn't sure what it would do to him, if anything at all.

Sakura used her index finger and thumb to pick up a dirty sock from the floor. Her face curled into a look of utter disgust and moved the offending article of clothing farther away from herself, then dropped in like a hot potato.

"Do I need to call a maid for you?" She asked. "Every time I come here, it just gets more and more filthy."

"Did you come here to criticize my place, or show me something?" Naruto grumped.

"I did come to share something, regardless of my statements a few minutes before," she replied. "I think it's big, and I never expected it."

Sakura took out a large folder from her own pack and laid it down on a clean part of Naruto's kitchen table. She took out the top paper and tapped it gently on the table to shake it out.

"I'll read it to you," she said calmly.

_June 1__st__: Mrs. Uchiha came in today without an appointment complaining of stomach issues. Gave a routine exam, and did not find that it was related to her pregnancy. This second pregnancy is more high risk than her first, but no evidence shown from tests suggests that there is any major problem. I have put her on mandatory bed rest for the remainder of her pregnancy._

_July 21__st__: Mrs. Uchiha's labor began three weeks earlier than predicted. The contractions are still spaced rather far apart, but leaving her like this with the issues this pregnancy has given her would be very unprofessional for me. I have sent her son out to spend the night with family friends. I see no need to scare the poor boy with his mother's labor pains._

_July 22__nd__: Second day of labor. Mrs. Uchiha's health seems to be fading, and the labor, in most healthy cases, should have ended by now. I fear the baby is turned in the wrong position, but since this is a home birth, I have no access to any of my equipment. _

_July 23__rd__: Turned the baby into the correct birthing position, only to find that the umbilical cord has wrapped itself around the baby's throat. Trying to untangle it without causing any further damage. _

_July 23__rd__, cont: The baby was born this evening perfectly healthy, despite the problems given with the birth. Baby is Male, twenty inches long, and seven pounds. All signs point to the fact that he is healthy. _

"God," Naruto sighed. "I didn't know his mother was having issues with him."

"He turned out alright in the end, didn't he?" Sakura said.

"I suppose," Naruto mumbled. "What else does it say?"

Sakura flipped through the large stack of papers. He thumb rubbed up against the edges of the paper, as if she were afraid to read further.

"I found a note in here from an ANBU," she said distantly. "It was written a couple hours after the Uchiha massacre. I'm not sure I want to read it, it seems very personal."

"You read it!" Naruto said outraged. "How come you get to know and I don't?"

"I never said I wouldn't tell you!" Sakura yelled. "All I said was that this is very sensitive information!"

"What did that ANBU write that was so upsetting to you?"

Sakura picked up the paper, smoothed it out, and told him.

"Did you know that when Itachi killed the clan, his mother was pregnant?" Sakura said slowly.

"I… no, I didn't know."

"No one did until the report came out," Sakura said. "This pregnancy was even more high risk than Sasuke's."

"So the ANBU found her dead body, analyzed it, and found out she was pregnant?" Naruto asked.

"Not quite," Sakura said. "This is where it gets strange. In the autopsy, they found that Mrs. Uchiha had pregnancy hormones in her system, but they couldn't find any evidence of a pregnancy. They analyzed proteins found in her body to get the info. One report said that it looked like she'd been ripped open and the fetus torn out."

"Gross," Naruto shuddered.

"According to the report, the child would have been female. The method used to remove the baby showed considerable medical talent. They found preserving fluid near her corpse. It's almost like someone was wandering around looking for her dead body, removed the baby, and preserved it."

Naruto looked into Sakura's eyes and gulped.

"I only know of one sick fuck that would even think of doing that," Naruto mumbled. "My only question is how he managed to get into the Uchiha compound long enough to do it."

"Are you thinking of who I think you are?" Sakura asked.

"Most likely," Naruto said. "Orochimaru."

"If it was Orochimaru that did it, then there's a chance that the baby would still be able to be re-implanted. She could still be born. It'd require some highly dangerous surgery, but it could still be possible."

"Maybe that's why Sasuke was so willing to go to him," Naruto said.

"Are you saying he was blackmailed?" Sakura asked.

"If he wanted power as bad as he said he did, he could've just stayed here," Naruto said. "Konoha has many skilled teachers. But Orochimaru might have blackmailed him. He could have promised that if he went to him, he'd let Sasuke's sister be born. That's something that Konoha never could have promised him."

"And you and I know that Sasuke would have been very tempted to have some connection to family again," Sakura said. "A sibling that isn't a missing-nin or a murderer…"

"We have to do something," Naruto said. "I don't know how long we have. I only know that time is running out."

"You want to put the re-build on hold?" Sakura asked.

Naruto nodded.

"Tomorrow, we'll go to Granny Tsunade and ask her to send us off on a mission to rescue Sasuke," Naruto said. "And his sister, too. Maybe Granny Tsunade can do something to bring her back."

"What makes you think that would work?" Sakura asked.

"Nothing much," Naruto grinned. "Just being hopeful."


	15. Gross Genetics

**Hello everyone! Miss me? My eye is much better now. We discovered that it was just a symptom of a different medical condition. (and no, I won't tell you what it is. ;D ). Thanks to everyone who sent me a pm or a review wishing me better health!**

**It's a short chapter again. I'm sorry! I won't be able to update as frequently as I used to, but hopefully we can all get right back on track soon. Read review, and enjoy!**

**Disclaimer: I dont own Naruto. But that could change...Christmas is coming up in a couple months, you know. **

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><p>Naruto sighed and plopped himself down on his old sofa. He let himself sink into the worn out cushions slowly, giving his brain a chance to process everything. There was no doubt in his mind: Orochimaru was blackmailing Sasuke so he could get his hands on his body to replace the one he was using. He had taken the time to come out to Konoha, watched the massacre without doing anything to stop it, and then desecrated the body of Sasuke's mother in order to go through with his selfish plan. It was a level of disrespect Naruto had trouble even imagining. There was a reason Orochimaru was as feared as he was.<p>

Naruto knew that Orochimaru had gone after Itachi first and failed. Did Orochimaru really think that Itachi would be as easy to bribe with his sister as Sasuke would be? The man was cold blooded enough to murder his own parents, and Orochimaru should have known better. Sasuke was treated as nothing more than the backup Uchiha for Orochimaru's plans. He was a runner-up body; a consolation prize. He was the younger and slightly less-skilled brother, the one with far less power, and thus in Orochimaru's eyes should have had less value than Itachi. Yet Orochimaru took him anyway for no other reason than he wanted the sharingan. The rest of Sasuke didn't matter to him. Any Uchiha would do. Naruto wondered if that was the true reason Orochimaru took Sasuke's sister in the first place. Sasuke's body wouldn't last forever, and if push came to shove, he could implant and raise the little Uchiha girl for her DNA. He'd have an endless supply of Uchihas as long as he used her. Orochimaru could very well have been planning to _**farm**_ Uchihas.

Sakura walked over to Naruto slowly and sat down on his left side. He turned his head away from her when he saw the look of concern on her face. She reached out tentatively, afraid to anger him. Her hand landed softly against his knee and patted it in an attempt to comfort him.

"You were so happy and enthusiastic a few minutes ago," she whispered. "What are you thinking now?"

Naruto sighed and moved her hand away. He sat himself up straighter on the sofa and turned back toward her, looking at her with a saddened expression.

"I just had a very uncomfortable realization," Naruto said seriously.

"About Sasuke?"

"About Orochimaru," Naruto said. "Think about it, Sakura. Sasuke's body won't stay in its prime forever. Eventually Orochimaru will need a new body to replace Sasuke's. However, if he does that, the new body won't have sharingan."

Sakura sat unblinking for a moment in deep concentration. Naruto watched her face changed as she realized what Naruto was explaining.

"So Orochimaru needs to keep switching to new Uchihas if he wants to keep the eyes," she said. "And Sasuke and Itachi are the only living Uchihas left, so Orochimaru is screwed. But if he finds a way to bring Sasuke's sister back, he'll have a way to just make more."

"Which both makes sense and confuses me at the same time," Naruto said, rubbing the back of his head in confusion. "Why can't he just use Sasuke to make more kids?"

"It's all about Kekkei Genkai genetics," Sakura explained. "Even if Orochimaru did use Sasuke to father Uchiha children, there's a chance that some of those children won't have the necessary genes to support the sharingan. The only way to be 100 percent sure that each child has a sharingan is if both parents posses a significant amount of Uchiha blood. It's one of the reasons all those old clans with Kekkei Genkai are so inbred. Quite a few of them married cousins."

"Like the Hyuuga?" Naruto asked.

"A lot like the Hyuuga, yes," Sakura nodded. "In fact, unless they both put their feet down on the matter, it's very likely that either Hinata or Hanabi will have to marry Neji. The Hyuuga are very traditional, even now that the times are changing."

"So what you're telling me is that if Orochimaru wants to be 100 percent sure that his next body will have sharingan, he'll have to make Sasuke sleep with his own sister?" Naruto's face contorted and his lip curled up in disgust. "That is the single grossest thing I've ever heard!"

"God, I hope not," Sakura shuddered. "Even Orochimaru wouldn't be that depraved. He'd probably just extract sex cells from each party and make test tube babies. Or at least that's what I'm hoping he'd do…"

"Their parents would still be brother and sister," Naruto mumbled, folding his arms to his chest. "Oh my God, they'd be their own cousins."

Sakura's face softened as she watched Naruto gag repeatedly and stomp off to his kitchen. He threw the cupboard doors open haphazardly and moved on to the next one without shutting the first. He hopped up to the cupboard over the freezer and took something out from inside. He turned around, his arms full of cups of instant ramen. He dumped them all onto his kitchen table, opening them all at once.

"You can't just eat your feelings Naruto," Sakura warned.

"I can," he shrugged. "Besides, it's dinner time anyway. You can stay if you want."

Sakura sighed and made her way to the kitchen area of Naruto's apartment slowly. Naruto glared at her when she taped the lids back down over the cups. He should have known that the look wouldn't work. Sakura wasn't that easy to intimidate.

"If you're that hungry, then you can come back with me to my house for supper. Learn what it's like to eat real food for once," she said flatly.

Her hand reached out for Naruto's collar and tightened around the black fabric securely. Naruto felt the tug of fabric against the back of his neck forcing him forward as Sakura walked along ahead, tugging him behind absentmindedly.

It wasn't easy to walk when one must duck over to accommodate for the difference in height. Naruto had never spent so much time bent over and looking at the ground. Naruto found that the only way to entertain himself while Sakura dragged him back to her house was to look for interesting rocks embedded into the dirt paths throughout the village. It was about as boring as it sounded.

Naruto couldn't help but think about what the whole mess felt like for Sasuke. Having your entire family slaughtered was terrible enough. Knowing that a piece of your former life was being used as a tool by an insane madman must have hurt even worse. Sasuke was a cold, stupid bastard; Naruto would never deny that. However, Naruto knew that not even Sasuke deserved to be blackmailed that way.

Sakura's steps stopped suddenly as Naruto lifted himself up and out of her controlling grasp and looked up at her front door.

"Don't be so glum, it isn't like you at all," Sakura said. "We will rescue Sasuke. There is no need to feel so worried."

"I know. I'm sorry," he replied. He turned away from her and lifted his hand to her front door's doorknob.

"Sasuke is strong, just like you. He can find a way to hold on long enough safely until we can get to him."

Naruto turned back to face Sakura, and stared into her eyes and saw only sincerity. She believed in him. She had nothing but hope and optimism about the upcoming mission.

Naruto turned back to the door and twisted the knob and pushed the door open, grinning to himself the whole time. He had to believe in himself too. Perhaps everything would turn out alright in the end.


	16. Take No Prisoners

**New Chapter! I was going to put it up for halloween as a surprise, but I was terribly busy. **

**I got new work for winter! I do seasonal positions at various stores. This time, I'll be working the black friday/christmas season at a retail store. This means I'm even more busy. Most of my new shifts are on thursday, so now tuesday will be my only free writing day. I'll try to keep updates regular.**

**One of the lines in this chapter was inspired by a line in the videogame Portal 2. I wonder who will find it...**

**Read, review, and enjoy!**

**Disclaimer: I dont own Naruto. I also dont own Portal 2. If I did own them, I could buy a swimming pool and fill it with money and swim in it. But then there'd be some bad papercuts...**

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><p>Something just wasn't right.<p>

It wasn't that Sasuke was being unnecessarily paranoid; he had a good reason for feeling this way. His eyes searched his room carefully. Nothing seemed out of place. In fact, nothing appeared to be amiss at all. But there was some strange feeling lingering in the air; some sort of uncomfortable aura that radiated from the room. It felt like someone had been here, or someone was watching him. Knowing Orochimaru, it was very possible that he WAS being watched. Sasuke had very little freedom. Orochimaru kept himself very close by at all times. When he couldn't be around, he had Kabuto take his place. Orochimaru, Sasuke could stand. He was creepy and Sasuke didn't like the way Orochimaru looked at him sometimes, but at least his attitude was bearable. Kabuto never trusted Sasuke, and for good reason. Kabuto taunted him, teased him, and dangled the lab key in his face…

Sasuke's eyes softly wandered around the room one last time, and then quickly moved to the pillow on his bed. The mysterious man was told to search his room. It had been an order from Kabuto. If the man had been as thorough as he was told to be, then there was no doubt in Sasuke's mind that the photo under the pillow had been discovered. Would the man open up the latch on the photo frame? If he did then he was sunk. If he didn't then Sasuke could brush off the photo's discovery as a mere memento. Orochimaru would stare at him with a glint in his eye and Kabuto would tease him mercilessly about it, but having that photo couldn't be seen as a betrayal in any way. The note next to it, however, could land him in some serious hot water, both literally and figuratively.

Sasuke walked into his room slowly, feet shuffling against the dusty floor. He sat on the edge of his bed and let his fingers wander over the threadbare blanket neatly made on top. He thought about how ridiculous it was to feel afraid to check on his things. Uchihas did not get scared, especially over such trivial things. Yet he couldn't help the feeling. He thought only of the consequences of being caught.

He took in a shaky breath and let his hand wander under the pillow for what seemed like the millionth time. The cold, metal frame was still there. Sasuke removed it from under the pillow and turned it so the back faced him. He lifted his free hand and slowly undid the latch. Moment of truth: was he sunk or safe?

Sasuke let out a sigh of relief to see that small scrap of paper that he staked his safety on come fluttering out onto the floor from behind the picture inside. The message was the same as always; it had remained untouched from the investigation.

Just because his secret was safe didn't mean that Sasuke was. He realized this as soon and he placed the picture back under his pillow. If Kabuto was suspicious enough to hire outside help to check up on him, then he must have told Orochimaru of his thoughts concerning him. Kabuto lived his entire life as a pathetic kiss ass that never did anything to upset the old creep. Kabuto probably alerted Orochimaru every time he needed to piss. Sasuke snorted at the thought.

Sasuke began planning immediately. He stood up off his bed and reached for the stubby lit candle on his bedside table while walking over to his tiny closet. He shoved the sliding wooden door to the side, revealing the contents inside. All his clothes remained untouched. All the shirts, robes, pants and zori stood arranged in neat rows. There was no bag or pack to speak of. Not even Orochimaru would have been stupid enough to give anyone here something that could be used to aid an escape. Sasuke wasn't stupid, either. He'd been making plans for weeks. He had been practicing what he'd need to do in his room in the dark. Everything he needed was simple enough to do now. He had his escape plan memorized.

He knew that he couldn't bring every scrap of clothing and weaponry he had with him. It would be too large and heavy and would only slow him down, and since he had no bag, he'd have to carry it in his hand. Trying to run while holding his bundle of possessions while cradling his sister's tank was dangerous to attempt, so Sasuke developed a way around that. He took one of his shirts and spread it on his bed flat and smooth. He took half of the clothes in his closet and most of the weapons not already sealed in his arms and lay them on top. Next, he folded the shirt around everything, tying it all in place with the shirt sleeves and forming a sort of makeshift pack that he could sling over his back and hold up with a strap made from his sleeves. This would leave his arms free to hold the tank securely. Once he was ready, he could create a diversion with Orochimaru's other prisoners and sneak away during the rush and confusion. There was only one problem with Sasuke's brilliant plan. He couldn't get into the lab. Kabuto kept the key around his neck and never took it off, and he couldn't break in. Kabuto kept the door locked and held tightly in place with chains. Sasuke didn't know how he would be able to get in and out undetected. He undid his practice bundle and replaced the messed items. There had to be a way. Perhaps it would come to him in the morning.

. . .

Sasuke blinked his eyes open early in the morning when the white noise of laughter and mumbling drifted through his door. More prisoners were on their way to breakfast or testing, no doubt. Sasuke didn't envy them for all the experiments most of them did. Sasuke originally spent his first few months at Orochimaru's hideout in the lab with all the other test subjects being injected with various poisons and antidotes in an attempt to make him immune to those substances. Orochimaru couldn't risk anyone trying to kill him in his new body by poisoning him, after all.

Sasuke pushed his door open and watched as the backs of the prisoners walked away to the main hall. Sasuke followed them twenty steps behind, listening to them.

"What're you doing today?" The oldest male asked.

"Who knows?" one of the newer boys replied. "I'm just glad he's done taking spinal taps from me. I've had a raging headache from it for days now."

"The preliminary spinal taps are better than the things that get done to you after it's analyzed," the third boy said. "When I first got here, I was one of two newbies. I had the endurance of my muscle cells tested; the other kid got injected with Praying Mantis DNA. I'm still here and alive. He…isn't. Let's leave it at that."

"I have the day off," said the only girl in the group. She held her head up in pride as her companions vocalized shock and annoyance at the unfairness of the announcement.

"What?"

"Why?"

"Who did you bribe? And with what?"

"Technically speaking I only have the day off because I'm supposed to be resting from the IV drip I got yesterday. But it's still a day off!"

The oldest boy shook his head.

"You got the day off, and that's cool. But I have supervisory duty today," he grinned, reaching around his neck and pulling out a key hanging on a string. "No testing for me, either."

Sasuke stopped in his tracks. That prisoner had a lab key. Sasuke had been unaware that certain prisoners got to be able to have keys. Why didn't he think of it before? A prisoner with a key would be much easier to bribe or steal from than Kabuto or Orochimaru. Sasuke seemed unaware that he had gasped audibly until the group of prisoners stopped as well and turned around to face him.

"Well," one of the younger boys said. "If it isn't the Uchiha."

"What do you want?" the other young boy asked, his voice filled with loathing.

"What makes you think I want anything?" Sasuke snapped.

"You've been following us on our way to get tested," the first boy answered. "You don't do testing. Your Orochimaru's favorite; his precious future body. All you do is train."

"He GETS to train, you mean," the second boy replied. "Do you know what I'd give to stop testing and start training again?"

"What's wrong with you two?" the girl yelled, walking up to Sasuke and batting her eyelashes. She grabbed his arm and hugged up against it. "You should be nicer to Sasuke. It isn't his fault."

"You're right, it isn't his fault," the first boy said. "But why should we be nice? He's never done a damn thing for any of us. He won't even look at us."

The girl let out a reluctant sigh and released his arm and walked back to the group.

"I…guess that's true," she said sadly.

"What do you want me to do?" Sasuke grumped. "Come down to your cells and bust the wall down and let you all run wild? You're PRISONERS. Prisoners don't get to run free. Do you want me to get a dictionary so I can read you the definition of the word 'prisoner'?"

"I heard stories," the second boy said. "About how this guy was cold and distant all the time. Nothing has changed. Once a douche, always a douche."

"That's enough," Sasuke said. "I did have something I wanted to discuss."

"You," Sasuke said, pointing at the oldest and tallest boy in the group, who had been silent during the fight. "I want to talk to you. Alone," he added, glaring at the two younger boys and the girl, whose look of excitement was wiped off her face faster than he could blink.

Sasuke walked back to his room, glancing over his shoulder every now and then to be sure that the boy was following him. Once they were both inside his quarters, he shut the door softly and turned back to the prisoner.

"You have a lab key," Sasuke said, his voice low.

"Yeah," he said nervously. "I do. So what?"

"No need to be nervous," Sasuke said. "I just want to…borrow it. I need to get into the lab. You can have it back when I'm done."

"What's in that lab you want so desperately?" his eyes narrowed in suspicion.

"Nothing of any importance to you," Sasuke said. "There's something in there that belongs to me. I want it back."

"Why would you need to ask a prisoner with a key to let you in if one of your possessions is inside? Why not ask Kabuto?"

"Because!" Sasuke said seething with anger at all the questioning. "Because Kabuto won't let me in!"

"Kabuto wouldn't have that be so off-limits to you if he trusted you," the boy mused. "So he must not trust you. He thinks you'll betray Orochimaru…"

"Shut up."

"Because you plan to take something valuable and run off, don't you?" The boy smirked.

"No," Sasuke said through clenched teeth. "I just want inside that damn lab."

"I'm not a dumbass," that boy replied. "I know you're planning to escape. I'll help you if you take me with you."

"Fuck no," Sasuke said coolly. "You'll only slow me down. I have a plan worked out and it won't work for two people. I'm going alone."

"You can go alone if you wish," the boy said. "But you'll do it without whatever it is you want from the lab. You can go alone empty handed, or you can go with me and that thing from the lab."

Sasuke held his breath as he thought it over. What did he have to lose? It was the prisoner who had the key Sasuke desired so badly, and without it everything was worthless. Sasuke walked back to his bed, reached under the pillow, and pulled out the picture frame and freed the slip of paper from its inside.

"This scrap of paper is from Tomio," Sasuke explained. "If you can help me get in and out of the lab, I'll let you come with me to go find him in the village. It's Tomio's decision whether or not to take you. If he won't have you, then you're on your own. Deal?"

The boy looked down to his bare feet. He grasped at the key around his neck tightly. He looked back up, a look of acceptance on his face.

"Deal."

Sasuke shook hands to seal the deal and told the boy all about his plan.

"Meet me at the lab at mid day," Sasuke said. "Don't make me wait. After I get in and out of that lab, we're out of here."


	17. This Empty Feeling

**I'm back! work and school took up a lot of time, but that is a terrible excuse. Sorry! More chapters to come soon.**

**Life is good for me. I have my condition under control and I feel better, and I started to rp on tumblr! Super fun!**

**Read, Review, and Enjoy, as always!**

**disclaimer: I'm too tired to care about not owning stuff, so guess what? I DO own Naruto. U mad?**

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><p>Naruto looked out to the street from his balcony early in the morning. He'd never felt this way before. On the inside he could feel that same strange swirl of emotions as before, but today was the day he was finally going to act on it. Once Sakura was ready, the both of them would go to Tsunade and request a mission to find and rescue Sasuke Uchiha.<p>

It was not sunny the way it usually was in Konoha. The clouds hovered overhead in such a way that it made the sky look close enough to touch. They alternated in shade; some merely lightly colored and harmless looking, and others dark and foreboding. Naruto took a glance at the calendar pinned to his board and squinted to read the tiny words printed on today's date. _**Land of Fire's Rain Season Begins,**_ it said. Naruto wasn't too particularly fond of the rainy season, and the fact had just ruined what good things there were to this day. Naruto walked off his balcony and back into his apartment and over to his closet. He reached up for the ratty old box on the top shelf inside. He grimaced at the shoddy handwriting done in black permanent marker on the side. How hard was it to write "Naruto's rainy season clothes" on the side of a box?

It had been a while since his last dream of Sasuke's past. He chalked it up to having been too busy to work any further on the compound. He felt lost. Sasuke had once told him that he would never understand what it felt like to lose family the way he had; that he had been alone his whole life and didn't know any better. Naruto shook his head. Sasuke never did see that he _was_ Naruto's family. He was the closest thing he'd ever had to a brother, or would ever have. Naruto's parents were dead, whoever they may be, and he was an only child. Sakura, Sai, Kakashi, Iruka, Sasuke… these were Naruto's family. While they were all still alive, Naruto couldn't help but sometimes imagine them dying and being unable to save them. Those were the worst kind of nightmares.

Naruto zipped up his jacket and snuggled deeper into the interior fabric. The morning chill had become more intense over the weeks. It was no longer the nippy air with the promise of a warm day. By now, it had morphed into a bone chilling cold that settled deep into his flesh. The seasons were definitely changing. It was only a matter of time before it would be too late to head out; too cold for a rescue mission.

Naruto lifted his head as he felt Sakura's fingertips land on his shoulder gently. He turned to face her, seeing that she had taken out her rainy season clothing, too.

"You're early," Naruto said surprised.

"I figured you'd be up by now," she shrugged. "You've been waking up earlier and earlier as time goes on. That might be a symptom of reading the chakra. We should have Lady Tsunade give you a quick checkup before we head out."

"What for? So she can tell me to stop because I'm wasting my life like you did?"

"No, so that you don't collapse from exhaustion halfway to the Sound Village," Sakura snapped back.

"You know that's exactly what Granny Tsunade will say," Naruto mumbled. "She'll tell me it isn't worth it."

"Are you even sure that it is?" Sakura asked.

"Why is this even still a question?" Naruto asked. "I'm not going to stop no matter what either of you say. This is important. Jiraiya gave up on Orochimaru, and look what happened to him. I'm not giving up on Sasuke."

Sakura sighed and lowered her head. It simply didn't seem fair to her. Risk Naruto's health and life and get Sasuke back, or have Naruto's life guaranteed safe and give up on reuniting their team? It wasn't something she thought any person should have to decide, and yet Naruto's decision to read the chakra forced her to make it. She'd agreed to it in order to keep Naruto quiet, but she was still against it in every way inside her heart.

"Can we just go?" she snapped. She huffed and lowered her head in anger, careful not to let Naruto see. Her anger was her problem, and it was better to hide it than keep fighting. It wasn't a healthy thing to do, but she'd do it, nonetheless. If Naruto was to suffer, than so would she.

The walk to the office was uneventful and silent, both Naruto and sakura still inwardly fuming with built up anger and resentment over their morning argument. The tension was very thick, and even the receptionist noticed it, and instead of greeting the two of them, opted to stay silent. As the two of them stood in front of Tsunade's desk waiting for her to return, they took side glances at each other, daring one another to speak of what happened earlier with Tsunade. The silent agreement was that they wouldn't.

"Any new memories since we last met?" Tsunade asked, stretching her arms up and yawning.

"A few, but they weren't very important," he shrugged.

"Don't just wash over everything like that," Sakura muttered. "Tell her everything or else. A doctor isn't any good if they don't have any specifics."

"So I got knocked out a couple of times," Naruto muttered back. "So what? I get knocked out all the time."

"If you go unconscious from now on, for any reason, you are to share it with me. Understand?" Tsunade said angrily from between her gritted teeth.

"Is it really that bad?" Naruto asked.

"That's the dangerous part," Tsunade said. "I don't have anything to compare it too, so I don't know if it's dangerous or not. Yours is a unique case that we all must handle with care. Everything that happens to you; every single little thing, must be shared. If we have a guideline for what happens, we can help not only you, but anyone else that has issues with it, too. It would be irresponsible to run around without some idea of what's happening."

Naruto looked up at Tsunade and groaned. He supposed she was right, but having to go to either her or Sakura was time consuming, and he had better things to do, and more important things to worry about.

"I'm sending Sai with you on your mission, but Yamato and Kakashi will not be accompanying you. The more people that go, the easier it will be to be spotted or thwarted, and Sai is more than qualified to lead you both in times of dire emergency," Tsunade said.

"You think we can pull it off with just three people?" Sakura asked.

"There's no other choice. Any more than three will cause suspicion, and if that happens, you're all doomed to fail." Tsunade said.

"And when will Sai be ready to leave?" Naruto asked.

"He'll meet you at the village gate whenever you two are ready. And please prepare carefully for anything. The journey to the Sound Village is a treacherous one." Tsunade said.

They left, bowing deeply as Tsunade turned to face her windows, the expression on her face unreadable.

"I'll get my pack, you'll get yours, and I'll meet you by the Gate in thirty minutes," Sakura told Naruto.

Naruto nodded. Now that they had the green light to go, he didn't want to waste any time.

. . .

Sasuke stood in his room all morning, pacing back and forth anxiously. He was going to get out, even if he had to bring that stupid prisoner with him. Yet, he had a sinking suspicion that he would fail. The clock on the wall began to chime, and the buzzing rang out in a quiet and dull tone. Sasuke would've made a note to replace the batteries if his desire to never see it again wasn't so strong. Time to go to the lab. He opened the door as quietly as he could, balancing his makeshift bundle on his back and toting a spool of explosive tags in his arms, placing one on the walls every few steps and connecting them all with a small thread of steel wire.

Sasuke looked up from his papers and wires to see he was at the lab door, the chains clinking quietly as he brushed past them.

"What do you have there?" The prisoner boy asked, pointing to the explosive tags.

"This is so we can get out quicker," Sasuke whispered. "I'm bitter; I admit it. I'm going to create an exit for us so big it'll destroy Orochimaru's precious lab."

"If you do something that flashy, they'll know that something has happened and that someone is probably gone," The boy mentioned.

"Not if I spill chemicals on the lab floor to make it look like an accident," Sasuke said quietly. "Speaking of that, did you remember the key…"

"Eiji," The boy said. "My name is Eiji."

"Eiji, did you remember the key?"

Eiji reached into his patched tunic, pulling out the string around his neck holding they key.

"Hold onto the chains while I unlock them so that they don't fall and make a huge noise," Eiji whispered as he moved to the door.

Sasuke placed his hands onto the thick chains on the door and felt the clinking they made as Eiji undid the lock holding them in place. As the chains fell away into his arms, he lowered them to the ground as quietly as possible and pushed the door open.

Vials and test tubes littered the tabletops, keeping jars of preserved animals company in the darkness. The only light he had was the light shining into the room through the crack in the door from the hallway.

"Get in, get what you wanted, and get out," Eiji muttered.

Sasuke nodded curtly and inched his way into the room. The tank was stashed in a cupboard in the back of the room. Sasuke groped around in the dark and felt his hand connect with the cold metal doorknob. He pulled it open and reached in for the tank. The cylinder of the thick metal tank felt strange in his arms, and he could hear the liquid sloshing around inside. It made him sick, but he didn't have the time to gag.

"I think someone heard us," Eiji said panicked. "We have to get out NOW."

"But this tank doesn't feel right-," Sasuke grumped.

"There's no time! I can hear the alarm from here! Another prisoner saw me standing here and told Kabuto! They think I'm escaping so the whole place is going into lockdown!"

Sasuke sighed and ran back out the door, grabbing Eiji's sleeve and wandering through the maze of halls to the edge of a wall.

"I'm going to pull this wire," Sasuke said as calmly as he could. "And when I do, every explosive tag that I placed here will go off. Then we run and won't look back. Got it?"

"Yes," Eiji gulped.

Sasuke tugged at the wire, and as the rumbling of explosions from deeper into the lair went off, Sasuke and Eiji made a dash to tone of the holes made by the explosions. The tremors became stronger the farther in they went, and every other step, Sasuke felt himself being pelted with stray rubble going loose from above him. The loud bang as all the rest of his tags went off rung in his ears, and he leaped up through the huge crater left by the tags, ignoring the screams and cries of the other prisoners below him as they were all buried in the rubble created from the falling rock.

Sasuke and Eiji watched as they walked away into the surrounding forest, seeing the smoke billowing up from the wreckage that was surely coming from the newly formed crater.

"They won't be looking for us right away," Eiji said. "That explosion was too big. Orochimaru will be checking on his lab first, then he'll concern himself with prisoner counts."

Sasuke nodded silently, holding onto the tank with both hands. It still didn't feel right. He knew the weight of a preserving tank, he'd worked with them for the past three years of his life. This one felt unusually light…

Sasuke stopped walking and rested the tank on the ground, unscrewing the top off the canister.

"Does this have anything to do with what you said earlier about it not feeling right to you?" Eiji asked nervously.

"It's too light," Sasuke muttered, dumping the fluid onto the ground around his feet and watching the dirt absorb the mess.

Empty.

The tank was empty. Sasuke had been preparing himself for the gruesome sight of his sister's body, but it hadn't come. The tank was empty and all his efforts wasted. If the tank was empty, then Orochimaru had surely already implanted the baby without his knowledge. Sasuke felt his anger rising as he clenched his fists near his side. He felt the pain and heat of his seal activating and did his best to keep it away. He wasn't going to run away with a prisoner and his sister to a new country and start over, he was running away with a prisoner on a mad chase to find his sister.

"Son of a bitch!" Sasuke muttered through clenched teeth.

"Is something wrong?" Eiji asked.

"Yes, something is wrong!" Sasuke yelled. "We aren't escaping. We are going to all the other hideouts and we are going to find my sister in them if it's the last damn thing I do."

She was in another hideout in this country, probably alone and scared. The thought of not being there for her pissed Sasuke off. Of course, things never went the way he'd planned them.


End file.
